


Who Wants to Live Forever?

by Keziah



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:03:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 49,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9281435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keziah/pseuds/Keziah
Summary: Alex thinks Kara trusts too easily, Kara just wants to hang out with her new friends, and villains really should know better than to mess with the Danvers sisters.orthe Supergirl / Avengers crossover that I wasn’t planning on writing





	1. What Are Friends?

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started as a laugh about Supergirl and the Supersquad meeting the Avengers and real life Fruit Ninja and then I started writing it and it sort of . . . got away from me.  
> I have completely messed with all the timelines here. All of them. Don’t try to make any sense of it. And events. Like, this is basically AU, not even canon divergent.  
> For dialogue purposes: this is “English” and this is << not English >>. They will be speaking a number of different languages, and I thought it would be easiest not to make you look in the notes for translations.  
> Shoutout to silverwriter01 who kindly helped me brainstorm, research, and edit this fic, along with giving me copious amounts of encouragement.  
> Barring any major events (car crash, mental breakdowns, or the like) I will be updating every Tuesday.

“Got him!” Alex grabbed the alien’s wrist as he ran past and swung him down on the ground, efficiently cuffing his hands behind his back. He turned his head, called her a few choice names, then hissed something in his language before spitting at her. She ducked and the acid spit went over her shoulder, melting an outdoor patio table.

“Really?” Alex asked him, tugging up on his arms as she stood. She slipped into his language. <<No melting. You keep melting things and I’ll muzzle you.>>

Kara touched down and fell into step as Alex shoved the alien towards their containment van. “I got the hurt people to the EMTs and propped up the building. It’s just a stop-gap though, they’ll need proper fixing soon.”

“Kay, I’ll let the property guys know.”

The alien hissed again, this time at Kara. <<Hey!>> Alex shouted. <<You keep a civil tongue in your mouth! I wasn’t kidding about the muzzle.>>

Kara sighed. “Isn’t a muzzle a bit excessive?”

“It was an insult, Supergirl. You know it, I know it, he knows it. And no-one insults you in front of me.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “I really don’t care what he said.”

“I do.” Alex shoved the alien a bit rougher than she probably needed to as she “helped” him into the van. Leaning close to his ear she hissed at him for at least a minute. The alien visibly shrunk in fear and scrambled away from her as far as he could get.

“Oh!” Kara piped up when the van door was closed. “There are some people that want to talk to you.”

“No comment.” Alex replied, dusting off her pants.

“Oh, not reporters.” Kara explained. “They’re . . . well . . . like us?”

“Huh?”

“Just go talk to them?” Kara batted her eyelashes.

“Fine.” Alex rolled her eyes to hide how mushy Kara’s pleading face made her feel. “Where are they?”

“Over here!” Kara grabbed Alex’s hand and tugged.

“One minute, one minute.” Alex pulled away from Kara and leaned in the window to talk with the driver. “If you make it back before me, tell Director Lane she’ll probably need a class 3 cell to contain this fellow.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The driver saluted briefly and started the van.

Alex looked around to see Kara bouncing on her feet and waving her over. She was standing next to three other people. Two looked pretty normal, but the guy was wearing some sort of jet-pack looking thing and goggles. Or maybe it was just a backpack? Alex vaguely remembered ‘Steampunk’ was a fashion thing lately. Alex straightened her vest, checked her gun, and strode over to the group.

“Guys, this is Alex.” Kara beamed happily. “Alex, these are my friends. Nat, Wanda, and Sam.”

Alex smiled a little at Kara’s ease at making friends, but ran her eyes over the group. “You guys wanted to talk to me?”

The one introduced as Sam (wearing the steampunk backpack) smiled appreciatively. “That was really impressive. Who trained you?”

Alex blinked. Was he being serious or just trying to make small talk? She never could tell with people. Deciding to go with the more serious route, Alex pulled out her badge. “FBI. What can I do for you?”

The redhead (who had been introduced as Nat) pulled out her own badge. “SHIELD. We heard there was trouble and came to take care of it, but it looks like you had it handled.”

Alex nodded. “Yep, we’re good here.”

Nat disappeared her badge somewhere inside her (very nice) leather jacket and gave Alex a half smile. “You’re not actually FBI, are you.”

Alex shrugged. “As per Order 517 section b, all communications between the DEO and SHIELD are to be sent through their respective directors.”

The shorter woman (Wanda, that’s right) snorted and muttered something. If Alex pegged the language right (and when didn’t she), it was Sokovian. She mentally moved the language up her “to-learn” list.

“Wait, you knew about SHIELD?” Kara stared at Alex, flabbergasted.

“Didn’t you? I thought your cousin talked to you about it.”

“No.” Kara pouted. “He never tells me anything. Spacedad had to explain it to me just now.”

Alex gave Kara a mental high five for the codename Kara had given J’onn. SHIELD and the DEO may be allies, but one couldn’t be too careful. “Oh.” Alex nodded, then turned back to the SHIELD group. “Thanks for the offer of help.”

“Anytime.” Sam replied, and the other two made agreeing noises.

Kara rocked back and forth on her heels twice before blurting out. “Want to go for coffee or something? I’d love to talk more.”

Wanda shrugged. “Why not.”

“Sounds fun.” Sam replied.

“Absolutely.” Nat’s smile seemed only partly genuine, and Alex spared her a warning glare.  _ Be nice. _ Nat raised an eyebrow, but nodded slightly in response.

“Alex?” Kara questioned.

“Not right now; I’ve got to finish dealing with Mr. Acid Spit there.”

“Okay.” Kara sighed, before turning to the other three. “Meet you at Noonan’s?”

The three gave their assent and moved towards a muscle car parked down the street.

“Better get a couple of sticky buns with your hot chocolate.” Alex continued. “You’re down nearly a thousand calories.”

“Uh huh.” Kara nodded. “You sure you can’t come?”

“Yeah, I need to deal with our alien of the week, and I’ve got some stuff waiting on me in the lab too. You can tell me all about it at dinner though. You’re still coming over, right?”

“Yes! Dinner. I will tell you all about it then.” Kara beamed again and shot up into the sky. Alex laughed a little at Kara’s dramatics and went to her own car, speeding back to the DEO.

 

While at the DEO, after making sure Mr. Acid Spit (alias Paul Nagen) was secured in a cell awaiting trial, Alex logged onto the interagency database and began researching SHIELD. She was only supposed to have the most basic of clearance, but Winn was easily threatened and Vasquez was easily bribed and J’onn had a tendency to look the other way, especially if she said it was for Kara. Anyway, she had more than enough access to find out who exactly Kara was having coffee with. Their files were impressive, even without Alex reading between the lines. Nat knew what she was doing (in fact, had more experience than Alex thought plausible for her non-listed age); the other two were new but reasonably competent. All seemed trustworthy enough and honestly trying to do good. It made Alex feel better, even though she had given up on trying to protect Kara from jerks ages ago - there were too many of them, it usually made Kara mad, and Kara was surprisingly good at dealing with them herself.

She whistled cheerfully to herself as she ran a few more tests on her personal project. It was shaping up nicely. She might even be able to bring the projected completion date down a few years.

 

\---

 

Alex had just started piling food onto plates when she heard Kara slide through her bedroom window. “Hey.” she said. “How was work?” She didn’t bother raising her voice; Kara would hear her no matter where she was.

“Really good, actually.” Kara chirped. “Being a reporter makes ducking out of work so much easier. And I got some really good material for that piece I started yesterday!”

“Mmhmm.” Alex replied. “The one you want to make a weekly thing?”

“Yeah!” Kara came floating out of the bedroom cross legged as she tugged on her sneakers. “I really think Snapper will go for it.”

“I’m glad.” Alex smiled and handed Kara her platter of food.

Kara floated down until she was sitting on the table and dug in. “Get everything done in the lab?” she asked through a mouthful of rice.

“Everything I had planned for today, yeah.” Alex took a bite of her own food and smiled in appreciation. Food tasted so much better when she had missed a meal or two.

“Really? Even with Mr. Not-So-Nice-Alien?”

“Oh, I plan stuff like that in.”

Kara snorted in laughter. “Of course you do. You’re perfect.”

Alex ducked her head and quickly changed the subject. “How was coffee with the Avengers?”

“Oh, it was great! I tried Noonan’s new hot chocolate and we got a bunch of sticky buns to share. I had three, and I think Nat had two! The Avengers are so cool! I think you’d really like Nat, and Sam is super funny, and Wanda is snarky, a lot like Vasquez, actually, and they have lots of great stories. Did you know they had aliens invade New York? Like not my kind of aliens, but a different kind? Honestly more like zombies or insects, but still.” Kara shook her head, half disappointed in the type of alien and half disappointed she’d missed out, and shoved more rice into her mouth.

Alex nodded, mentally tallying up Kara’s food intake. “Yeah, I read their reports. Sounded like quite the fight. Neither Sam nor Wanda were there for that one though.”

Kara peered at Alex. “Alex. Did you run their backgrounds?”

“Yup.” Alex didn’t even bother pretending to be ashamed.

“Are you going to do background checks on all my friends?”

“I already have.”

“And if I make new friends?”

“Probably. I do background checks on all my friends too.”

“You don’t have any friends.” Kara grumbled.

Alex turned to the fridge and grabbed a beer to hide the hurt she felt at Kara’s words. “Do you want me to stop?”

Kara shrugged. “No, I get it.”

“You sure?” Alex didn’t want Kara to think she was stifling her or trying to make her decisions for her. They’d dealt with that mess after the Red K incident and Alex was really trying to change.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Alex finally turned to look back at Kara and saw a soft smile on her face.

“You protect.” Kara continued. “That’s what you do. And you don’t tell me to stop seeing people or anything. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Okay.” Alex nodded and turned back to her food. This conversation was getting too serious. “Did you save me some of the shrimp?”

Kara pushed the take out box towards Alex.

“Sweet! Thanks.” Alex shoveled a few spoonfuls onto her plate and pushed the box back towards Kara. “Want to sunbathe this evening?”

There were a few reasons Alex had chosen a top floor apartment and ensured sole access to a good portion of the roof, and having a place for Kara to sunbathe was one of the big ones.

Kara shook her head and scrunched up her forehead. “I promised Winn I’d go see the latest Star movie with him.”

Alex swallowed her disappointment. “Star movie? Do you mean Star Wars or Star Trek?”

“Oh, I don’t know which one. I can’t keep them straight.”

“Well, whichever it is, have fun.”

Kara brightened. “I will! We’re going to make fun of the science, and Winn said he bought a couple of those refillable popcorn tubs. Movie popcorn is the best!”

Alex shook her head in pity for the concessions people.

 

After Kara left, Alex grabbed another beer and sat at the table, staring at the empty takeout boxes. A glance into the living room showed a dusty (empty) bookcase and a shiny (full) gun safe. She glowered at the boxes shoved in the corner that she’d just never gotten around to unpacking. There were more in her closet. She’d planned to spend the evening with Kara, since she didn’t have work, and now the apartment just felt empty and her liquor cabinet far too appealing. Damn, maybe she did need some friends. Swallowing the last of her beer, she grabbed her phone. She could do this. Surely she knew someone she could hang out with outside of work. Her eyes lit up as she scrolled down her contacts list. Maggie! Maggie could be a friend. And since she already had a girlfriend, Alex wouldn’t have to worry about misread intentions. Before her courage left her, Alex hit dial.

“Sawyer.” came the quick answer.

“Hey Sawyer, it’s Danvers. I was wondering if you were busy tonight. Maybe you and I could go grab a drink or something?”

There was a lengthy pause. Alex’s heart fell.

“Did you have a case you wanted to talk about?” Maggie asked hesitantly.

“No, no. Just thought it’d be nice to get to know each other outside of work.”

Another pause. Alex clenched her fist. This had been a bad idea.

“Um.” Maggie said. “I’ve got plans. Sorry. Do . . .”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. See you around.” Alex hastily hung up the phone. Well, that was a disaster. She glanced at the kitchen cabinet that held her alcohol stash.

“Who needs friends anyway?” she muttered to herself as she pulled out a bottle of whiskey.


	2. Interviews Can (Occasionally) Be Useful

Alex was slumped in a chair in the DEO break room, scrolling through her phone contacts and muttering “no, no, no, no . . .” under her breath when Kara walked in.

Kara flopped down in Alex’s lap. “Watcha doing?”

Alex shook her head. “Nothing.”

“I could hear you muttering ‘no’ from across the base.”

“Just looking at clothes.” Alex lied. “I haven’t gone shopping in a while and all my jeans have holes. Can’t find the ones I usually get.”

“Want to go to the mall this weekend? A little shopping, a little eating?”

“Yeah, sure.” Alex smiled. She always liked spending time with Kara. Maybe it would take her mind off her lack of other friends. Her phone contacts had been less than forthcoming in possibilities.

“Great!” Kara dropped a kiss on Alex’s cheek and then jumped up. “I’ve got a bunch of meetings this afternoon, but I’ll see you later!”

“See you.” Alex’s smile dropped when Kara left the room. Alex glanced at her phone and thumbed through a level or two of Fruit Ninja. Wasn’t her mandatory break over yet? She could get so much more done if Lucy wasn’t such a hardass about work hours. It’s not like her pay changed if she worked more; she was salaried, after all. She had fifteen more minutes in her lunch break. Maybe she could just start working early. Lucy wouldn’t notice, right? She was about to get up when Winn entered the room. He’d been offered a job at the DEO after Myriad and once he’d finally worked up the courage to tell Ms. Grant he was quitting, he transferred over. He handed her a bag of takeout and sat down next to her, opening his own brown paper lunch sack.

“What’s this?”

He shrugged. “Kara asked me to give it to you.”

“When?”

“Right before I came in here.” Winn spoke through a mouthful of sandwich. “She said she could tell you hadn’t eaten, so she went and grabbed something.”

Alex peered inside the bag. It was a sandwich from one of her favorite cafes. The one in Portland Oregon, not Portland Maine, which was why Kara had time to go grab it in the five minutes since she’d seen her.

“Oh. Thanks.” Alex gave Winn a nod.

“Sure.” Winn pulled open a bag of chips. “Do you game at all?” he asked suddenly. “I don’t mean the stuff we do at game night, I mean like video games. Or RPGs.”

Alex shook her head slowly. “Not recently. Haven’t really had the time.”

“Well . . . since Lucy is being a butt about overtime, and you can’t stay here all night like you usually do, you should join us sometime. I’ve got a Pathfinder group that meets every couple of weeks and we just lost our fighter.”

Alex blinked. “Yeah, maybe.” She finished her sandwich and tossed the crumpled bag in the trash, ignoring Winn’s comment of ‘and three points for Danvers’. Finally she could get back to work.

 

\---

 

She was only half an hour past her official end of work time when Lucy walked into her lab. Alex looked up guiltily. “I was about to leave, I promise.”

Lucy just looked pointedly at the experiment Alex was clearly in the middle of and shook her head. “No, I’m actually glad I caught you. We’ve been interviewing the alien you brought in the other day, to see if he’s willing to cut a deal, and he’s said some stuff.”

“What sort of stuff?”

Lucy grimaced. “I’m not sure. The translation software isn’t making much sense, and he refuses to speak English most of the time. Refuses to speak any human language, really, but seems to have something against English in particular.”

“O-kay?”

Lucy laughed and handed Alex a file. “I’m asking you to come speak with him. You apprehended him, he might be more willing to talk with you. The AI says their culture takes being bested in personal combat as a show of rank, so maybe he’ll be more responsive or respectful to someone he sees as a superior.”

Alex snorted as she flipped through the pages. “He wasn’t all that respectful when I picked him up. Seemed more intent on insulting Kara.” The alien’s papers were pretty typical. Was in Fort Rozz, left as soon as he could, stole some papers (or forged them) to pretend to be human. Kept a low profile until the incident in the plaza.

“Just give it a shot? His lawyer is being difficult.”

Alex looked longingly at her microscope.

Lucy sighed. “I’ll get someone to watch your cells. And let you stay late tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

 

Alex walked into the interrogation room behind Lucy and stood at ease just behind Lucy’s right shoulder. The alien was in cuffs and his lawyer was tapping a pen on her notepad impatiently.

“What now?” the lawyer demanded, as Mr. Nagen shrunk back a little at the sight of Alex.

“Ms. Carson, this is Agent Danvers. Agent Danvers was the arresting officer and I thought it would be useful to include her in the discussion.”

Alex nodded her head in greeting.

Ms. Carson grinned, showing her teeth. “Wonderful. Perhaps she can answer the question of whether my client was read his rights at arrest.”

Lucy didn’t even blink. “Ms. Carson, I have assured you . . .”

“In a language he could understand.” The lawyer’s smiled turned even more predatory as she pointedly focused on Alex.

Alex finally met her eyes and hissed at her.  <<Although he showed fluency in English during our confrontation, I informed him of his rights in the language he was primarily insulting me in. This one. Which you would know if you had bothered to read my report.>>

Mr. Nagen gave a sibilant laugh as the box on the table helpfully translated Alex’s words. Lucy didn’t even bother trying to hide her laugh, and Ms. Carson’s jaw dropped briefly before she drew herself back up in preparation of her next accusation.

Mr. Nagen leaned towards Alex and slithered a question at her too quickly and quietly for the translator to catch over the rattling of his cuffs. Alex hissed back at him.

“Agent Danvers?” asked Lucy.

“My apologies, ma’am. He wanted to know what you meant by a deal.”

“I see.” Lucy turned to Mr. Nagen “We have evidence to convict you on several felonies. However, if you provide us with information, we can make the sentence less severe.”

They all paused while the box did it’s translation. Alex frowned at it. “That translation sucks. Where did you get that thing? Never mind.” She hastily clarified the translation for the alien and added a few phrases.

He lifted his hands and reached over and turned off the translator. “I think I would like to talk. I do not want to go back to Fort Rozz.”

Lucy smiled. “Excellent. Though, in full disclosure, you would not go back to Fort Rozz and our prisons here are very different.”

“But Fort Rozz is here, no? And already good for locking up aliens?”

“Actually, Supergirl pushed Fort Rozz into space a few months ago.” Lucy explained. “It’s very much unavailable.”

Mr. Nagen whipped his head towards Alex, lapsing back into his native language as he sputtered something at her. Lucy and Ms. Carson watched in fascination as Alex turned bright red and stammered something in return.

He turned back to Lucy, but gestured back to Alex. “You are truly a powerful person, to have both her and her mate under your command. I will help in anyway I can.”

“What do you know?” Lucy asked.

Mr. Nagen made a surprisingly eloquent gesture. “I was offered a job. Destroy the area, make a lot of attention. Be sure the one in red and blue showed up. They offered good money to do it, and threats if I wouldn’t.”

“Give me everything you know on who offered you the job.” Lucy said, scribbling on her notepad while the lawyer leaned back in her chair, resigned.

It didn’t take long before they had a couple of leads, and Lucy was releasing the alien back to his cell, hurrying to the computer unit to start the tracking process.

 

Alex rushed back to her lab as soon as Lucy dismissed her. She’d barely relaxed into the soothing hum of the centrifuge before Lucy showed up in her door once more.

“What on earth did he say to you?” Lucy asked, leaning up against the doorframe.

“What?” Alex busied herself with some files.

“When he made you blush.”

“Oh, uh, nothing.”

Lucy laughed. “That wasn’t nothing, Danvers. C’mon, tell me.”

Alex ducked her head. “Is that an order, ma’am?”

Lucy sighed. “No, Alex, it isn’t an order.”

Alex didn’t respond.

Lucy sighed again and walked out of the lab.

 

\---

 

The next morning Lucy found a five page report on her desk on how to improve the translation box. She shook her head in disbelief. Noticing Supergirl walking by, she stuck her head out of the office door and called after her. “Hey Supergirl!”

Kara turned around and smiled. “Lucy! Hey! What’s up?”

“Do you remember that alien you brought in last week?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you know Alex spoke his language?”

“Oh yeah! I mean, I learned that when we brought him in. He was saying some not nice things and she kind of chewed him out for it.”

“How does she learn these things?” Lucy waved the report in the air. “She just gave me a report on fixing our translation software that’s better than anything I’ve heard from the linguistics department.”

“Oh.” Kara lifted her hand as if to fiddle with glasses that weren’t there. She settled for brushing her hair back. “Well, she learned most of the alien languages using a Kryptonian AI, which means she got culture and stuff along with the language lessons. I mean, it’s not brain patterning but it’s better than the way you guys usually learn languages. And she’s been doing it a really long time.”

“Huh.” Lucy flipped back through the report. It was really impressive.

“She’s also basically a genius. And works harder than anyone I know.” Kara continued.

Lucy nodded. “I can tell.”

Kara looked very proud. “She graduated early and then did her bachelor’s in two and a half years straight through. Wanted to get an early start on her PhD / MD.”

Lucy jumped at the chance to learn more about the Danvers sisters. “And what about you? Did you graduate early?”

“No, I just got my bachelor’s concurrently. Eliza thought going to all of high school would help teach me how to be normal.”

“Uh huh.” Lucy pursed her lips skeptically. “And did it work?”

“I dunno.” Kara furrowed her brow in thought. “I think working at Noonan’s helped more. People tell bartenders everything! And going to grad school was very enlightening. And living alone. I’d liked to have had a roommate, but didn’t want to risk it.” Kara looked down and twisted her fingers. “I actually stayed with Alex a lot. She helped ground me. Always does.”

Kara looked very pensive, until a couple agents came around the hall corner. She jerked her head up and smiled broadly, if a bit more strained than usual. “I’d better go say hi, actually, before I head out.”

Lucy returned Kara’s smile. “You do that. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Sure thing!” Kara gave a Lucy a little wave and sped away.

 

Kara wove her way around the tables and equipment and wrapped her arms around Alex’s waist from behind.

“What’s this for?” Alex asked.

“I’ve been thinking.” Kara replied.

“Ah.” Alex twisted around so she could hug Kara properly. “Anything in particular?”

“About all the stuff you do.”

“I see.” Alex stiffened ever so slightly in Kara’s embrace.

“No, no, it’s good! You are perceptive and smart and helpful. I mean, you see what needs to be done and you do it! Like doing translation or arresting aliens that you empathize with but they’ve still broken the law so you have to arrest them. That’s the just the type of person you are, and I love you for it because that is so hard. Like when you stabbed Aunt Astra. It needed to be done to protect J’onn and everybody else, and nobody else could have done it. I couldn’t have done it. You’re always protecting me like that; I don’t think I realized how much you do for me.”

Alex pulled back a little and looked at Kara. She was so earnest and full of love. It hurt.

Kara leaned forward and bumped her nose against Alex’s cheek. “You all right?”

Alex brushed off Kara’s question and stepped back. “It’s just, you don’t really talk about Astra much. Last time you did, it was kind of rough.”

Kara nodded as they pulled apart. “I know. I’ve been working on that. I’ve been talking with some people about it, well one person mostly, actually, a therapist.” Kara looked at Alex out of the corner of her eye.

“Okay.” Alex said, trying to put all the support and love she could in that one word.

Kara relaxed a little. “It’s really helped. I’m a lot better at figuring out what I’m feeling and why and how to work with it, you know?”

“Yeah. That’s good.” Alex smiled at Kara. Therapy was not what Alex had expected when Kara had started being serious, but she was glad that’s what it was. It certainly explained why Kara’s life was running a bit smoother. Fewer angry outbursts, less miscommunication with her friends, even work seemed to be going better. Alex knew therapy could help a lot, and really, she should have thought of this for Kara earlier. I mean, if you want to talk about textbook childhood trauma . . .

“You should think about it.” Kara urged.

“Huh?” Alex was drawn out of her thoughts. “Think about what?”

Kara twisted her fingers. “Finding someone to talk to.”

Alex made a noncommittal noise.

“It doesn’t have to be a therapist!” Kara hastened to add. “Just someone you trust, you know? That’s more objective and can help you understand stuff.”

Alex hummed again. “We’ll see. I’m glad it’s helping you, though.”

“Yeah.” Kara leaned forward and hugged Alex again, pecking her on the cheek.

They stood there together, loosely wrapped in each other’s arms until Kara glanced at the clock and sighed. “I need to go or I’ll be late to work. Um, I can’t make dinner tonight, but lunch tomorrow?”

Alex nodded. “Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens! I hope. I have this all planned out (looks to be 30 chapters unless something changes) and I'm really trying for good pacing here.
> 
> Also, I know how hard it can be to tell people you’re going to therapy, and if you need someone that will be super supportive, you can talk to me. I'm keziahm on tumblr, since AO3 sadly doesn't have messaging capabilities.


	3. I Can Say No!

It was just after noon and Alex was jotting down a few notes on salt transporters when her phone buzzed with Kara’s pattern. Tucking the phone into her shoulder, she began to plot out her next test.

“Hey, Kar.”

“Hey, Lex, I can’t make lunch today, Snapper is kind of on the warpath.”

Alex frowned. “He didn’t shut down your hope column idea, did he?”

“I haven’t even been able to pitch it, yet!” Kara said, exasperated. “I turned in my article and he just yelled at me. And then James needs help with some of the photography submissions and Ms. Grant wants me to interview new assistants. And knowing the time of week, I’ll probably have to step out to take care of some idiot rampaging around the city at some point.” Kara groaned into the phone. “I really wanted to see you.”

“It’s okay.” Alex stretched in her chair. “No big deal. You go take care of things and we can do something later.”

Kara sighed into the phone. “Thanks, Alex. I love you.”

“Love you too.” Alex replied.

 

Alex hung up the phone and tapped her fingers thoughtfully. If Kara was canceling lunch with her, she probably didn’t have time to sit down for lunch. Which means she would resort to the drawer of snacks in her desk. Alex couldn’t stop Kara from working while she ate, but she could at least ensure Kara ate something more substantial, especially because Kara’s breakfast was a little on the light side.

Alex opened up her phone again and dialed one of her most used numbers. “Hi, I’d like to order a delivery of three cheeseburgers, a large fries, a Caesar salad, a large mozzerella sticks, a chocolate shake, and a strawberry shake.”

. . .

“Oh, hey Danny. Yeah, it’s for Kara.”

. . .

“CatCo. She’s actually in the office for once.”

. . .

“A new delivery guy? I’ll tell security to watch out for him. And please tell him to make sure he doesn’t use Cat’s elevator; we don’t need a repeat of the noodle incident.”

. . .

“You still have my card on file, right?”

. . .

“Of course, what was I thinking? Thanks. See you around.”

 

Alex hung up, quickly texted the security guys at CatCo, and turned back to her salt problem. If she could just activate that one transporter without activating the other . . .

 

-

 

Kara had gotten halfway down the hall towards James’ office when she stopped short. Since she canceled lunch with Alex, that meant Alex would probably just work through her lunch break in the lab. She tapped her fingers on her phone (gently). The DEO really didn’t like getting delivery from restaurants. She’d make that mistake before. Nodding her head firmly, she pulled up her contacts.

“Hey, Vasquez, could you do me a huge favor?”

. . .

“Go to Agent Danvers’ office, not her lab. There’s a cabinet marked ‘Better Half’ in the corner. Open it, and in the top right drawer there should be some cash.”

. . .

“No, I don’t know who labeled it; it certainly wasn’t Alex. It showed up after they instituted that new filing system.”

. . .

“Anyway, take the cash and go get lunch. There’s this great food truck just down the street, get whatever you want, plus the steak sandwich and a purple energy drink. Then, stop by that bakery on the corner and get a couple of their brownies and a thing of skim milk, plus whatever you want. I recommend their danishes. They are sooooooooo good.”

. . .

“Well, if I had time, I’d just grab some from Paris.”

. . .

“Right, well once you’ve got the food, go find Agent Danvers. Tell her you had a friend bail on your lunch and ask her to join you.”

. . .

“Yeah, she’ll know it was me as soon as she opens the bag, but by that point she’s committed and can’t back out.”

. . .

“If that will get her to eat lunch, do it.”

. . .

“Thanks, Vas, you’re the best!”

 

Kara hung up and went into James’s office, digging through his desk to find the folder he’d left for her. There was a sticky note on top with a list of things he was looking for and a request to run them down to the art department when she was done.

After flipping through the folder briefly, Kara headed back to her office. She sped up as the smell of cheeseburgers wafted towards her. Opening her office door she moaned at the sight of the food on her desk. “I love you, Alex.”

She checked her watch. If she hurried, she could probably eat and proof the art at the same time and be done before the interview with another potential assistant that afternoon.

 

\---

 

She barely made the interview, popping a mint into her mouth as she slid through the door. The interview went well. That is to say, Ms. Grant hated this particular candidate less than all the previous ones.

After Kara ushered the applicant out the door with a kind smile and a discreet pass off of a tissue, she turned back to Ms. Grant. “Is there anything else you need, Ms. Grant?”

Cat tapped her chin with her glasses, studying Kara in her peripheral vision. “I need you to take over the assistant duties for the foreseeable future, since there are clearly no competent replacements in the city.”

Kara held back a groan. “Of course, Ms. Grant. Shall I move back to the desk outside your office?”

Cat threw up her hands. “Kara, for the love of all that is media, can’t you say no?”

Kara’s eyebrows drew together. “Ms. Grant?”

“Listen to me very closely, Kara.” Cat stood up and leaned over her desk.

Kara stumbled back slightly. “Yes, Ms. Grant.”

“You’re far too eager to please. Stop caring about what other people want or need - you can’t please or save everyone and you damn well shouldn’t try. You’ll just run yourself into the ground. ”

Kara adjusted her own set of glasses. “Ms. Grant?” She winced after she spoke. Cat hated it when people repeated themselves.

“You. Need. To. Woman. Up. Make choices based on what keeps you happy and healthy and not waffle about it. It took you weeks to decide to be a reporter. Weeks! When it took me all of fifteen minutes, years ago, to realize that was what you wanted. And don’t get me started on Alex. You’ve been pining over her for longer than I’ve known you. So figure it out and dive!”

"Ms. Grant, I figured out I wanted to be a reporter in four days, not weeks. And Alex and I aren't..."

"Kara, were you not listening? I said do _not_ get me started on Alex. I've personally predicted every couple in Hollywood for years; don't think you can hide from me."

Kara fidgeted and tried to defend herself. “I can say no to people.”

Cat huffed. “You ran out on your Thanksgiving dinner because I called. You’ve been trying to balance four jobs and a social life just because you’re asked to. You haven’t done anything with your hobbies in weeks. Do you need me to go on?”

“What do you know about my hobbies?”

Cat flicked her hand. “You get paint on your fingers. I don’t know why you can’t wash it off; the spots clash horribly with your outfits.”

“They’re oils . . .” Kara murmured, staring at her hands. It was true she hadn’t made it anywhere near her easel in at least a month, but she hadn’t expected Cat to know about it.

“Kara.” Cat was looking at her kindly. “Stand up and take what you want.”

Kara opened and closed her mouth several times. “I, I don’t know what I want.” she eventually stammered.

If anything, Cat’s eyes became softer and gentler. It was a little unnerving. “Then think about it. Perhaps talking to someone professionally could help. I’ve found great use for my therapy sessions.”

Kara tried not to snort. Cat’s use for her therapy sessions seemed to be more of the venting type, instead of the talk about your feelings and dreams type.

Cat gave the slightest smirk. “You are, of course, always welcome on my balconies too.”

Kara opened her mouth and closed it again. Cat kept hinting at something, and Kara wasn’t sure how to deal with it. She was just about to ask Cat if maybe they could go out to the balcony right now and talk a bit, when her phone rang.

It was Hank. “Supergirl, we need you at the docks. There’s giant squid thing causing trouble.”

Kara sighed. “I’ll be right there.”

Cat waved her hand at Kara’s apologetic look. “Go. Deal with whatever it is. Think about what I said.”

Kara nodded. She definitely had some thinking to do. Maybe she could squeeze in another session with her therapist after dealing with the squid thing. Or drop by Cat’s balcony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely believe every delivery / takeout restaurant within 20 miles knows Alex and Kara personally.


	4. Girls' Day Out

Saturday morning Alex was rudely awoken by one very energetic, very warm, and very heavy alien flopping on top of her.

“Ugggghhh.” Alex groaned.

“Wake up, wake up!”

“I’m up, I’m up.” Alex twisted her body and shifted until she could sit up, with Kara flopped face up in her lap. She smiled down at the grinning girl. “You’re excited.”

“We’re going out! It’s been ages since we’ve had a day to ourselves.”

“We’re only going if you get off me.” Alex said wryly. “I can’t move.”

Kara stuck her tongue out at Alex and floated away into the kitchen. “Go shower; I’ll make breakfast.”

Alex whistled cheerfully while she showered. Her funk about her lack of friends had disappeared with the arrival of one cheery alien. She could smell the bacon Kara was cooking (even though she fully expected most of it to be gone by the time she got there) and was actually looking forward to going to the mall. Getting dressed she pulled on her favorite jeans (despite the holes) and one of her comfy t-shirts that Kara liked to steal. Kara had made French Toast, chopped up some fruit, and even left Alex some bacon. There was fresh coffee in the pot and J’onn had promised to take care of any alien threats by himself that weekend. It was shaping up to be a good day.

“Want to fly to the mall?” Kara asked eagerly, once they’d done the dishes.

“No.” Alex responded.

“Aww, why not?”

Alex turned and leaned against the counter, facing Kara, and ticked off the points on her fingers. “One, I’m not interested in blowing either of our covers. Two, we’re going shopping. I don’t want to be hauling bags around all day and then having to carry them all while we fly home. Three, I don’t have nearly enough chances to drive my car instead of a DEO issued one and I want to take advantage of it.”

Kara’s eyes widened. “Can we put the top down?”

Alex grinned. “As if I would drive it any other way.”

 

Alex swung the passenger door open for Kara, who folded herself down into the car with surprising ease. Settling herself behind the wheel, Alex let herself relax. She loved driving, and this particular car just made it better.

Kara sniggered from the passenger seat. “Do I need to leave you two alone for a few moments?”

Alex turned to grin at Kara and started the car, revving the engine and wiggling her eyebrows. She peeled out of the parking lot, sending Kara squealing to grab onto the door handle.

 

Kara tried for casual as soon as they hit traffic and had to slow down. “I talked to my therapist again yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Alex glanced over at Kara.

“Yeah.” Kara looked at Alex as she expertly navigated the roads towards the mall. “Do you think I can’t say no?” she finally blurted out.

Alex wrinkled her brow and thought for a moment. “You’re really nice, Kara. The nicest person I know. And sometimes people take advantage of that. I know you can say no, you say it to me all the time. Just make sure you’re not overstretching yourself, I guess. You may be Supergirl, but you still have limits.”

Kara pursed her lips. “Okay.”

Alex reached over and rubbed Kara’s thigh. “Hey. I want you to be happy, all right? And making other people happy makes you happy. That’s not a bad thing. It’s only a problem if it comes at the expense of your health - mental, physical, or emotional.”

“That’s what my therapist said.” Kara replied.

“Really?” Alex smiled. “I think I approve of this therapist.”

“What, like you haven’t run her entire background already.” Kara snorted.

Alex shook her head. “Nope. You said she’s helping and that’s all I need to know. Everything else is none of my business.”

Kara turned doe eyes on Alex. “I love you so much.”

Alex gave a twisted smile. Time to change the subject before she said something she regretted. “Uh huh. Are you sure you’re not saying that because I agreed to go shopping with you?”

“Alex!” Kara laughed, slapping at Alex’s arm. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

As soon as they entered the mall, Kara grabbed Alex’s hand and began dragging her along.

“Kara, slow down!” Alex laughed. “We’ve got all day.”

Kara reluctantly slowed down to a more reasonable pace. “I know, I’m just excited.”

“I know, I know. Where to first?”

Kara stopped at looked at her. “Really? You’re letting me decide?”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah. I just need jeans and I can get those pretty much anywhere.” It was a good enough excuse for why Alex would do anything to make Kara smile.

Kara grinned. “Okay, well, I’ve found a store I think you’ll really like. No bright colors at all, lots of jeans, lots of button ups. All the stuff you usually wear. We can go there first and get the serious business out of the way before settling down to some solid browsing.”

Kara tugged again on Alex’s hand. Alex rolled her eyes affectionately. “All right. Show me this wonderful store.”

 

Walking through the detectors, Alex was actually impressed. She was only five feet inside the door and she’d already seen three things she’d consider wearing. She ran her hand over a leather jacket presented prominently on a nearby mannequin. It was really nice, but she already had one. With a parting sigh at it, she began browsing the jeans, picking out a few that looked flexible enough to not rip the next time she had to fight hand-to-hand with an alien.

Kara walked up behind her and put her hands on Alex’s shoulders, leaning forward to speak. “Find something you like?”

“Yeah.” Alex nodded distractedly. “I think I’m going to try these on.”

“Great!” Kara beamed. “Want a second opinion on how they make your butt look? You need to stay on top of your game.” She waggled her eyes suggestively.

Alex snorted and shoved Kara gently. “You should be more worried about how _your_ butt looks, with everybody you’ve got fawning over you. And don’t tell me red is a good color for pants.”

Kara leaned back, faking offense. “Alex!”

Alex sent Kara a sly grin.

Kara laughed. “I’m going to see if this store carries anything brighter than a dull blue.” She bounded off and began flipping through a rack of plaid shirts.

As soon as Alex disappeared into the fitting rooms, Kara dashed to the rack behind the jacket Alex had been looking at and began flipping through the hangers. “C’mon, c’mon, no, no, no!”

A clerk came up. “Do you need some help?”

Kara swung around. “Yes! Please tell me you have this in more sizes.”

The clerk eyed Kara critically. “Well, I think you’ll fit a . . .”

“No, no!” Kara interrupted the clerk, and apologetically fiddled with her glasses. “Sorry, it’s for my . . . Alex.”

“Oh!” The clerk gestured towards the fitting room. “Her?”

Kara nodded. “I want to surprise her with it when we get home, so . . .”

The clerk grinned. “Of course, of course! Just tell me her size and I’ll go grab it from the back. We can ring it up at the far register and I’ll slip you the bag when you leave.”

“You’re the best!” Kara said, leaning in for an impromptu hug. The clerk laughed in surprise and returned it before bustling towards the back.

 

Alex ended up getting three pairs of jeans and a new shirt. She looked around, but didn’t see Kara as she brought her purchases to the counter. “Hi!” The clerk said, with an enthusiastic and knowing grin. “Did you find everything you wanted?”

“Yeah.” Alex nodded, returning the smile. “You guys have some great stuff.”

The clerk dropped a hanger. “Th-thank you!” She blushed lightly and busied herself with ringing up Alex’s jeans.

Alex dug out her wallet and passed over her card. The clerk glanced at it and smiled again. She passed the card back and slid Alex’s clothes into a bag before handing it over the counter. “I hope you and your wife have a great day, Ms. Danvers.”

“Uh . . .” Alex half turned back to say something but was interrupted by Kara.

“I’ll run these out to the car!” Kara said a little too loudly, grabbing Alex’s bag and wooshing away.

Alex just shook her head and grinned, exiting the store. She moseyed past a few shops, stopping to stare at some rings while she waited for Kara.

 

They’d only browsed maybe a quarter of the mall before Kara convinced Alex to go get something to eat. They found the food court, ordered food from four different places, and hauled their platters to a table at the edge of the area. Alex sat in the seat against the wall, and scanned the food court out of habit. _Exits there, there, and there, table isn’t bolted to the floor, so we can use it for cover if we need to, no one with a gun within 50 yards_ . . . Alex paused in her inspection as she caught sight of a young woman with long brown hair sitting by herself.

“Hey, isn’t that Wanda over there?”

Kara twisted in her seat, sliding her glasses down her nose to get a better look. “Yeah, it looks like it.”

Alex tapped her fingers on the table twice before asking hesitantly. “You want to see if she wants to join us?”

Kara beamed brightly before wrinkling her forehead. “You sure? Today is supposed to be for us.”

Alex shrugged. “You’re friends, right? I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I’ll go ask.” Kara bounded out of her chair and walked over to Wanda.

Alex smiled as she saw Wanda greet Kara and Kara gesture towards their table. Alex raised her hand in hello when Wanda glanced over. Wanda appeared to be deliberating, but soon stood up and picked up her tray. Alex pushed out a chair with her foot as the two girls walked over.

“Hey Wanda.” Alex greeted her with a smile and a handshake.

Wanda blinked as she shook Alex’s hand. “I cannot read your mind. Neither of yours.”

Kara grinned. “Well, you know, powers make it so mine can’t be read. Very convenient.”

“Very annoying.” Alex grumbled.

“But I cannot read yours either and you are human.” Wanda looked at Alex, very confused.

Alex waved her hand. “You’re not the first telepath I’ve met. After the last one I started training in resisting mental invasion.”

“Oh.” Wanda nodded and sat down.

Kara sat down too, and tried to steal one of Alex’s fries almost as an afterthought. “I didn’t know that!”

Alex swatted at her hand. “I don’t tell you everything, you know.”

Kara pouted.

Wanda grinned. “You know, my brother is not above using a pout to get what he wants, but you do that better than he can.”

Alex chuckled. “Does he steal your food too?”

Wanda rolled her eyes. “That’s basically all he uses his superspeed for.”

Alex mock glared at Kara. “I know what that’s like.”

Alex and Wanda shared a commiserating look while Kara grumbled. “Maybe I shouldn’t have introduced you two.”

Alex leaned forward conspiratorially. “Let me tell you about the time I managed to catch her mid theft. Hand literally in the cooky jar.”

“Please do!”

Alex gleefully embarassed her sister; Kara slumping further down in her chair, though it did not slow down her food consumption. She straightened up, though, when Wanda shared a few choice stories about the Avengers and pranks they would pull on each other. Halfway through a story about Banner sneaking itching powder into Tony’s suit, Kara looked over at Alex and leaned toward her. Alex smiled and gave Kara a small kiss on the temple. Wanda cocked her head, but continued her story. Neither Kara or Alex gave any indication what the kiss had been for, nor any indication it was unusual, so Wanda let it be.

 

After Alex and Wanda had eaten their fill (and Kara had polished off what they didn’t want) Alex pushed back her chair. “You busy this afternoon, Wanda?” she asked.

“No.” Wanda replied. “I’m waiting for the others to finish at the Consulate. There are still issues with me not being a US citizen and working here. They’re trying to get me dual citizenship, but it’s taking forever. So many forms and letters and petitions!”

Kara patted Wanda’s hand consolingly. “That’s rough. I’m really glad I avoided all that.”

Alex snorted. “You didn’t. You’re still an illegal alien.”

“What? But, but, I have documents and stuff!”

Alex shrugged. “Forged. Well, maybe not forged anymore because the DEO issued the new ones and they’re technically government, so maybe you’re legal? I’ll have to ask Lucy.”

At Kara’s hurt look, Alex hastened to reassure her. “There’s a totally legal way for aliens to become citizens now. It’s one of the things President Marsdin was working on with J’onn. And the government knows you’re here, so I don’t think you’re breaking any laws.”

Kara seemed mollified by Alex’s explanation. “Enough shop talk, we’ve still got the rest of the day for shopping! You’re coming with us, right, Wanda?”

Wanda glanced at Alex, who nodded encouragingly. “Sure.”

 

They’d only made it past two more stores before Kara peeled off and gazed longingly in a window. It was an craft store, and there was a display of paintbrushes artfully arranged under soft lights. “Can we go in here really quickly?” Kara asked.

Alex merely held open the door for Kara. Kara beamed and hurried inside, beelining towards the paints and gently running her fingers over the rainbow of colors. Wanda wandered over to the woodworking section and Alex nonchalantly noted the brand and type of the paintbrushes Kara had been looking at before finding the pen aisle. Alex had a very specific type of pen she used in her lab journals and they were surprisingly hard to find. Smiling happily when she saw the store carried them, she grabbed three (just to stock up) and headed to the register.

“Hi, I like to get these and if you could add a set of those paintbrushes in the display window, that’d be great.”

“Sure, I’ll just go . . .” The cashier was cut off by Alex’s hand.

“I don’t want Kara to see that I’m getting these for her, so if you could maybe just ring it up and I can grab them when she isn’t looking?”

The cashier nodded at Kara. “Her?”

“Yeah.” Alex said.

“Well, they’re kept in back and I have to take the security box off, but I can do that under the counter and then you can slip it in your bag? She’s still busy looking at paint.”

“Yeah, that would work, thanks.” Alex ran her hand through her hair and used the glass countertop to keep an eye on Kara while the cashier discreetly rang up her pens and the paintbrushes.

Alex carefully tucked the paintbrushes in her inside jacket pocket while Kara wasn’t looking. She turned to find Wanda looking at her with an inscrutable expression on her face. Alex shifted her stance to a slightly more prepared one. “What?”

“Did you seriously just pay over a hundred dollars for some brushes?”

Alex shrugged. “Kara really likes this brand. Says they hold their shape better, longer.”

Kara joined them at the counter, passing the cashier a few tubes of paint. “Watcha talking about?”

“They have my pens here.” Alex said.

“Oh!” Kara laughed. “Don’t let her get started on her pens. She’ll talk for hours about them.”

Wanda looked between the two. “I see.”

Alex straightened up. “A crafter is only as good as her tools, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kara slung her arm around Alex’s shoulders as she collected her receipt and paints and thanked the cashier. “It’s just funny. Ms. Grant says the same thing about her fountain pens.”

Alex blinked, staring at Kara as they walked out of the store. “Wait, really?”

 

A few more stores later and they were rounding a corner which held mostly semi-fancy restaurants and bars. A guy stepped out of the bar and ran into Kara, bouncing off before swinging around to look at them. “Heeeeeeeey, ladies.”

The three raised their eyebrows in unison and looked at him with unimpressed stares.

He roamed his eyes over them, focusing on Wanda. “You look familiar.”

“We most definitely haven’t met.” Wanda replied.

“No, no, I know you from somewhere.” He snapped his fingers.

Wanda shrugged and turned away. Alex and Kara followed, but they’d only made it a couple of steps before the guy yelped. “You’re that Avengers bitch! The one that keeps screwing up!”

Wanda and Kara both turned, but neither were as fast as Alex.

Alex reached the guy in half a second and shoved him against the nearest wall, raising her finger. “I know how to kill you six different ways with just this finger, so I want you to think very hard about the next words that come out of your pathetic mouth.”

“Uh, Alex?” Wanda tried to get her attention, but Alex was too busy dressing down the man in front of them. “I can take care of myself . . .” Wanda trailed off.

Kara patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, she knows that. I mean, I can take care of myself too, but that’s never stopped her. Half the time she’s taken care of the threat before I show up.”

Wanda gave a half smile. “Yeah, like when we met you.”

Kara nodded. “Exactly! And the stuff she’d do while growing up? Nobody made fun of me after Alex beat up the whole football team.”

Wanda and Kara both looked on in awe as Alex finished educating (threatening) the guy and shoved him back towards the bar.

“You didn’t need to do that.” Wanda said, as Alex joined them, dusting off her hands.

Alex shrugged. “He was being an ass. Now come on. We’ve got more mall to hit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The car I imagine Alex having is the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider. In matte black, of course. It’s relatively affordable (for a sports car) and since Alex usually drives DEO issued sedans or SUVs, she figured she could splurge for her personal car. Driving with the top down reminds Kara of flying, especially when Alex is going faster than she should be.  
> Also, that whole kiss on the temple thing is because of that interview with Chyler and Melissa and I just couldn’t not put it in.


	5. The Boring Part (of fighting crime)

Three steps down the hall and Alex’s phone buzzed.

Alex groaned. “He promised. He yells at me for not taking vacation and then he does this!” She waved her phone about before answering.

“Danvers.”

. . .

“It’s our day off.”

. . .

“Yes, sir.”

. . .

“We’ll be there in 20.”

Alex hung up the phone and glared at it. Wanda asked, slightly worried. “Something wrong?”

Kara shook her head. “Want to come to a crime scene with us?”

Wanda cocked her head. “You could hear the other side of the phone call?”

“Of course.”

Alex, who had been checking something on her phone, turned to Wanda. “You’re welcome to come along. It’s more investigative and less action, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

Wanda nodded. “I think that would be very educational. The rest of the team mostly just hits stuff.”

Alex nodded. “I can see that. You want a ride or did you bring your own car?”

“I came on the bus.”

“Great.” Alex slapped Kara on the back. “You’re flying. Know where it is?”

Kara rolled her eyes. “I know this town better than you do. Race you?”

Alex grinned. “Three tourist trap selfies, three continents, not counting this one.”

Kara sighed, “Fine.” and began speed walking to somewhere where she could change into her supersuit. Alex grabbed Wanda’s hand and began sprinting for the exit. “Come on! If we step on it, we might be able to beat her!”

Wanda nodded and slyly magicked a cart out of the way as they barreled out the doors. Alex had the car trunk and doors open before they reached it and she threw the bags in the trunk on top of the weaponry. She lept over the back into the driver’s seat as Wanda slid in the side. Alex flipped on the lights and stomped on the accelerator. Driving through the midday traffic went quite smoothly, both because of the police lights on Alex’s car and Wanda’s judicious use of telekinesis. Alex drifted her car into a spot next to regular police car and the two women sprinted up to J’onn, panting with laughter and exertion. They got there seconds before Kara dove down from the sky, barely stopping short of the ground.

Alex pointed at Kara. “Ha! I finally beat you!”

Kara pouted and turned to J’onn.

He raised his hands. “I’m not getting into this. Crime scene is over there.” He strode off to where a group of techs were huddled around the front of a store. The three girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Did you really take selfies on three continents?” Wanda asked.

“Yeah!” Kara excitedly pulled out her phone and proudly showed Wanda the pictures. There was a smiling Supergirl in front of the Eiffel Tower, a Giza pyramid, and the Great Wall. “It’s fastest to go around the world instead of going and coming back.” Kara explained.

Wanda blinked. “I knew you were fast, but that was really fast. I shall have to brag to my brother I know someone faster than him.”

Kara leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m even faster than Superman. We’ve raced.”

Wanda looked at Alex, who nodded in solidarity. “I timed them.”

Wanda chuckled. “I am glad I know you two.”

They were interrupted with a call from just past the tape line. “Danvers!”

Both Alex and Kara looked up and Alex stiffened just slightly as the speaker ducked under the tape and headed towards them. “Sawyer. What brings you here?”

“I’m the official liaison between the NCPD and the DEO.” she explained. “What’s happened and who’s this?”

Alex waved a hand at Wanda. “This is Ms. Maximoff. She’s shadowing me today. Wanda, this is Detective Maggie Sawyer of the NCPD.”

Wanda shook Maggie’s hand, lingering a little as her fingers glowed ever so slightly red. Maggie gave her an odd glance, but angled herself towards Alex. “What have we got?”

“Not sure.” Alex replied. “I just got here myself.”

“I’m going to go check with Vasquez.” Supergirl said. “And Director Henshaw wants you over there.”

Alex turned to see J’onn eying them. “All right, let’s go see what was so important to call me in on my day off.”

Sawyers turned to follow, but was called by one of the officers securing the scene. “I’ll join you in a minute.” she said to Alex before striding back towards the cop cars.

Alex nodded, then turned to Wanda. “What’s your impression?”

“Of the scene?”

“Of Sawyer. You did read her mind, did you not?”

Wanda nodded. “She’s a good woman. Good cop. A little confused by you and frustrated with the DEO, but willing to work with it.” Then Wanda laughed. “It is nice to have another one to talk to.”

“Huh?”

Wanda tapped her head. “Your Director Henshaw. It is nice to have someone who understands. And he says to stop using illegal methods on our allies and start investigating already.”

 

Alex and Wanda joined J’onn at the crime scene. It was a jewelry store that looked like it had been robbed. The front window and part of the wall was destroyed and the cases inside were broken and empty. The door to the back half of the store hung mostly off its hinges. Glass littered the ground and agents swarmed about taking measurements and photos. A nervous man in a suit stood nearby, wringing his hands and talking to a police officer and an agent.

“Robbery?” Alex questioned. “Why were we called in?”

J’onn grunted. “Agent Danvers.” He quirked an eyebrow at Wanda.

“Oh, yeah.” Alex said. “Ms. Maximoff is shadowing me. Hoping to learn more about the investigative side of secret organizations, not just the beat ‘em up parts.”

Alex paused. “And you knew that already.”

J’onn’s mouth twitched slightly. “From the gentleman’s description to the police, it wasn’t a regular robbery. Guy was definitely looking for something specific. Seemed particularly interested in the basement, but still took the time to rob the place blind. And, probably wasn’t human. Supergirl is looking at the security footage to see if she can identify the perpetrator. We’re also running him through our databases.”

Alex nodded and began scanning the scene more carefully. “What did he use to break in?”

“Some sort of weapon shattered the window, the wall, and the display cases. The door was forced by brute strength. His partner, who appears to be human, held guns on the employees while the first perp went downstairs and did something in the basement. They left with several large bags that perp number one apparently carried with ease.”

“Something? Don’t we know yet?” Sawyer interrupted, walking up behind them.

J’onn showed a passive face. “The building is still being examined for structural integrity. Once it is ascertained as safe, we can go downstairs and look.”

He passed Alex a tablet. “These are the witness reports. Hopefully we’ll be allowed inside by the time you’re done going over them. Oh, and consider Ms. Maximoff read in.”

J’onn stalked off towards the tech van where Kara sat cross legged in the air talking animatedly with Agent Vasquez.

Alex motioned Wanda off to the side, out of the way of the techs still taking pictures, and angled the screen towards her so they could both read the reports. Sawyer followed and pulled out a pad to take notes on as she read.

They read in silence for a few moments. When they finished the statements, Alex turned to Wanda. “What do you think?”

Wanda glanced over at the destroyed store. “It is an old building and he was looking for something downstairs. What was here before?”

Alex smiled. “Good question. Let’s find out.” She taps out message on her tablet, sending it off to Vasquez. “She’ll have the info soon. Meanwhile . . .” Alex trails off, looking at the shopfront. “A weapon did that damage. Sonic, maybe? It’d be nice if we could go inside.”

Sawyer grins. “We could send Supergirl in with a camera. Wouldn’t matter if the building collapsed on her.”

Alex glared. “Or we could be patient and not use our best asset as an errand girl or potentially destroy evidence.”

“Joking, Danvers.” Sawyer said, with a puzzled glance. “Just joking.”

Alex nodded shortly and stared at the tablet, willing some new information to come up. Luckily, it dinged soon with a notification from Vasquez. Alex pulled up the message and scans the list of previous owners going back 100 years, when the original building was constructed. “Jewelry store currently, before that was a bookstore, before that it was empty for a few years after the previous owner (a chemical plant) went bankrupt and sold it to a real estate company that turned it into this row of retail. Before that . . . that’s interesting.” Alex showed the tablet to Wanda. “Used to be a lab owned and run by Howard Stark.”

Wanda’s reply was cut off by the fire department announcing that the building was structurally fine and they could go in, just to be careful of a few dangling light fixtures and doors.

Alex was first through the hole in the wall, of course, closely followed by Wanda and Detective Sawyer. They weren’t five steps inside the building when Supergirl whooshed over and fell into step beside Alex. Bypassing the front room, they scanned the staff area of the store. The safe had been broken by what looked like whatever had damaged the front room. There were stairs heading down in the corner so they moved towards them, both Alex and Maggie pulling flashlights as they descended.

It was dark in the basement, the dangling light fixtures the fire department had warned them about sputtering. Swinging their flashlights around they looked for anything unusual. Another safe had been broken into and raided. A few pieces of furniture lay broken. A massive hole was in the far wall.

“Huh.” Supergirl said, cocking her head. “I don’t think there was a door there.”

Alex stepped up to the hole and stuck her head through. “You’re right. It was bricked up awhile ago. Looks like the old Stark lab.”

“Tony Stark owned this place?” Supergirl said, excitedly.

“No, his dad, Howard.” Maggie replied, joining Alex at the hole. Peering through they could see old tables, some metal shelves, basic lab equipment, and a couple destroyed filing cabinets.

“What do you want to bet there were files there.” Alex said.

“Not taking that one.” Sawyer replied.

Wanda frowned. “It does not sound like a Stark to just brick up his work. He would have cleaned it out.”

“Not if he got murdered first.” Alex suggested. “And had contingency plans.”

“Contingency plans to hide away his work? How paranoid was he?” asked Detective Sawyer.

“You know, that does sound like a Stark.” Wanda answered. “And if Howard was anything like Tony, I’m sure there were things he’d want to hide.”

“All right.” Alex stepped back. “Let’s get the techs down here and start cataloguing.”

She turned to Wanda. “This is the boring part of working for the DEO.”

 

\---

 

Several hours later, they were still at it. Alex was supervising the scans they were making of the area (to be used in reconstructions) as well as the collection of evidence. Wanda had gotten a call and had to leave. Detective Sawyer was still hanging around making copious notes and asking a multitude of questions of anyone who would talk to her. And Supergirl? Supergirl was doing a little bit of heavy lifting, in between helping Vasquez and the rest of the tech division with their analysis. Of course, she occasionally got distracted watching Alex.

Kara tried to be discreet while she watched, but anyone could have told her that she was the furthest thing from discreet when it came to Alex. Fortunately Alex was pretty oblivious, and there were a few bets floating around the DEO, so the other agents usually let it be. The longer they were outside, cataloguing evidence and interviewing witnesses and examining every inch of the store, the more Kara watched and worried. 

Kara had been horrified when she learned that the yellow sun, that wonderful, little, yellow, brother of Rao that had blessed her with so much, could actually hurt humans! Ever since Alex had come back from surfing one day bright pink and exuding heat that Kara could practically see, Kara had made it her personal mission to make sure Alex was properly covered in sunscreen whenever she went outside. She wouldn’t rub it in for her. Alex had always stated (very firmly and usually accompanied by a swat at Kara’s hand) that she could put on her own sunscreen. And feed herself. And dress herself. And  _ what are you doing, Kara, I can wash myself just fine! _ Alex was nice and explained how human customs differed from Kryptonian ones, so Kara hadn’t tried to do that for years. Not that she didn’t want to . . .

Kara peered a little closer at Alex, using her super-vision. Was that slight redness on Alex’s nose a start of a sunburn? Not her Alex! Not on her watch!

Kara fingered the CVS card in one of the many hidden pockets of her supersuit. Her flingers fluttered over to another card. Would Walgreens be closer? They both carried Alex’s favorite sunscreen. They even had the sunscreen foundation combo Alex thought no one knew she used. Kara had plenty of cash, so she could go right now . . . A fond smile crossed Kara’s face at the thought. Alex always made sure she had at least five different countries’ cash in her suit (no credit cards to give away her identity) just in case. Supergirl nodded firmly and jumped straight into the air.

It didn’t take long to reach the nearest pharmacy. She did get a couple odd looks as she walked down the aisles and the cashier was brave enough to ask if Supergirl even needed to use sunscreen.

“Oh no!” Kara giggled. “This is a gift.”

Stepping outside of the store, she braced herself, then shot off. She flew by Alex and put a dab of sunscreen on her nose before tucking the tube in Alex’s utility belt. Alex always knew when Kara would do this, but never called her on it.

The agent gave a half exasperated, half amused sigh when she felt the wind zoom by her and a cold spot on the bridge of her nose. She pulled out her phone to make sure the sunscreen was properly rubbed in, and discreetly took a photo of Kara while she did so. Kara just looked so cute, standing on her tiptoes to peer over J’onn’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I totally forgot to put this when I posted the chapter, but the sunscreen interaction with Kara and Alex was totally silverwriter01's idea and she kindly let me use it. I thought it was wonderful, and it sounds like y'all do too. :D


	6. Party of Five, Your Fight is Ready

Inspired by the success of her girl’s day out and the interactions with Wanda, Alex spent the next week on a search for friends. First, she tried making friends at bars. It’d worked while she was in college (well, you say casual clubbing buddy, she says friend), so it couldn’t hurt trying again. Most of the guys (and a large chunk of the women) assumed she was aiming for a one-night stand, and the others just seemed to think she was a lonely drunk. Which she was, but that was beside the point and didn’t make her any friends.

Then she tried chatting with people on the subway and at coffee shops, or that one runner that did the same circuit she did every morning. She got polite smiles and some small talk, but also a lot of confused faces and gentle humoring, the sort of thing you give to people who aren’t quite right in the head.

After a week of rejection, Alex spent Sunday night slumped on her couch. She groaned into her beer. “That’s it. No more trying to make friends.”

 

Alex walked into work the next morning to find a stack of reports on her desk. While the thieves hadn’t been found yet, the evidence lab had finally finished going over everything from the crime scene. They’d verified the presence of two perps (one human, one alien) and made some suggestions as to the type of weapon that could have done the damage. The bit Alex focused on, however, was the confirmation that it hadn’t just been Howard Stark’s lab that had been bricked up and broken into, but also SHIELD’s. And that there had been files in the filing cabinet up until very recently.

Alex grabbed the report and speed-walked towards the law director’s office, darting between mystified agents and shy lab techs. She stood in front of the office door and rapped quickly.

As soon as Lucy’s voice started to say “Come in.” Alex opened the door and dashed in.

“Agent Danvers.”

“I need to speak with SHIELD.”

Director Lane leaned back in her chair, a smile on her face. “From what I hear, you’ve been talking with SHIELD a lot lately.”

Alex twitched her shoulders. So what if she’d been chatting with Wanda some, and Sam had joined them for game night over the weekend. “That’s inappropriate, Director. My personal life is none of your concern. I need information from SHIELD and Tony Stark in regards to the jewelry store robbery we’ve been investigating. According to regulations, all communication between the DEO and SHIELD must occur through the directors. So, I’m respectfully requesting an official meet with SHIELD.”

Director Lane sighed. “I’ll give them a call.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Alex spun and walked out the door.

 

An hour later, Director Lane knocked on Alex’s office door. “Suit up. SHIELD has an op. They said if you specifically help with that, they’ll give you whatever info you want. They don’t want any other agents, but you can call Supergirl, if you want.”

Alex nodded and stuffed the paperwork back in her desk before heading to the armory. Five minutes later, she was on the road, heading towards an address in the warehouse district. She texted Supergirl with the address and a note to be very quiet and discreet about showing up because she didn’t know the situation.

She killed her lights and siren a mile from the address, and pulled her car in behind a dumpster about a block away. Hopping down from the driver’s seat, she double checked her exo-suit and opened the trunk. She managed to suppress a jerk when Natasha’s voice came from behind her. “Just you?”

“And Supergirl.” Alex replied, nodding to Kara, who was gently drifting down from the sky.

“Okay, that gives us two for air support, one heavy hitter, a stealth fighter, and a containment specialist.”

Alex flicked her eyes over the others, and loaded her biggest gun. “What’s the op?”

“Hydra. They’ve been modding some of their human agents and we know at least two of them are hiding out here, along with tech and info and various other nasty things. Goal is to go in there and arrest them, but they’ll probably fight. Which is why we’re here and not some SHIELD squad.”

“Do we have eyes?” Alex asked, making sure her large gun was secured on her back next to her sword and her handguns were easily drawn.

Sam tapped the tech on his wrist. A hawk shaped drone buzzed up behind him and flew off. “We do now.”

They crowded around the screen to see a disconcerting bird’s eye view of the warehouse. The bird ducked through a window and hovered near the top. As it spun around, they caught sight of two vaguely humanoid creatures longing on a couch.

“Okay.” Natasha said. “Sam and Supergirl I want to you bust in through opposite windows. Try to herd them towards the back doors. Alex, come in through the front and dissuade them from going that way. Make lots of noise. Blow things up, use that ridiculously sized gun of yours. I want panic, you three. Wanda and I will take the back and grab ‘em when they come out.”

Alex mock saluted and draped a bandolier of grenades across her shoulder. She pulled the large gun back off her back, noisily chambering a cartridge, and narrowed her eyes, a sly smile that promised death and destruction growing across her face.

Sam flipped down his goggles while commenting offhandedly. “Why is it the one without powers is scarier than the one with literal laser eyes?”

Wanda shrugged and Kara smiled proudly. “That’s Alex.”

Alex thought he just hadn’t seen Kara in the right situation yet.

“Give us two minutes to get into position, then go.” Natasha instructed Alex.

“Got it.”

 

Alex patiently counted down the seconds on her watch, then strode toward the warehouse door. She reared back and kicked it open, quickly throwing a couple of smoke and light grenades in. Flipping her helmet down, she stalked through the smoke, firing off her massive gun into the crates on either side of her.

The infrared on her goggles showed her the two inhumans turning towards her, so she ducked and rolled behind a decrepit forklift. A large something flew by right where her head had been. She tossed a few more smoke and flash grenades ahead of her, then darted diagonally to a pile of boxes, laying down some suppressive fire with her rifle. She popped off a few more shots with her baby, then grinned at the sight of Sam and Kara swooping down from opposite sides of the roof.

The men were backing up now; one was throwing fireballs, alternating between Sam and Kara until he realized hitting Kara was useless and concentrated on Sam’s wings. The other man was picking up and hurling crates bigger than he was, keeping the two airborne fighters busy dodging missiles. Kara caught a couple and threw them back. Alex popped off more shots with her beautiful gun, hitting something that blew up spectacularly and caused the inhumans to finally back their way through the door on the opposite side of the warehouse.

Alex could hear the yelps as they ran into Natasha and Wanda. Alex quickly sprinted towards the door and leveled her gun at it just as one of the men (the crate-hurling one) came back through the door. She cocked her head at him. He looked at her, looked at Kara and Sam hovering behind her shoulders, and slumped his shoulders. He lifted his hands in surrender.

Alex looked around him to Natasha. “Are you calling for clean up or am I?”

 

They both ended up calling for clean up, and while the heavy SUVs and vans and fire department showed up to do damage control (and chew Alex out because apparently one of those explosions was a bit big? Too small, in Alex’s opinion), Alex got down to business.

“We’ve held up our end of the deal, it’s your turn.”

“What sort of information do you want?” Natasha asked.

“I need whatever you know about an old Stark / SHIELD lab down on 20th. It was broken into and ransacked last week. Alien tech was used, and we’re pretty positive some old files were stolen.”

The team looked at each other. Sam grimaced and Wanda sighed. Natasha’s face was as collected as usual.

“You know something about this.” Alex stated.

“This isn’t the first old lab to be broken into.” Natasha explained. “Someone’s been going through them, looking for something. There have even been a few hacking attempts on SHIELD directly.”

Alex raised her eyebrows. “Do you have details?”

“Yeah. I’ll send you what we know.”

“You could just tell me now.” Alex said, eager to get started.

“You’re going to want the reports, trust me.” Natasha said.

Alex paused, making a mental note to search through SHIELD’s database later. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, do you have a general overview you could give me?”

Natasha looked around. “Have you guys got the clean up handled?”

The DEO and SHIELD agents looked up and all made affirmation noises.

“Great.” Natasha turned to Alex. “Let’s get coffee.”

Alex blinked. “Uh, I’ve got to get back to the base. Debrief, fill in the rest of the team with the new info, make some adjustments on my baby here . . .” Alex patted the large gun she was carrying.

Natasha grabbed Alex’s arm, slipped the gun out of her hands and tossed it at Supergirl, then gently pushed Alex towards the nearest car. “Nope. Coffee. Debriefings can wait. We need to talk.”

Alex looked around with wide eyes. Supergirl shrugged and mouthed ‘have fun’. 

They drove in silence to the coffee shop, where they ordered two coffees (black) and a couple muffins. It was only after they had sat down at a table in the corner (both women with backs to the wall and within easy access of the exits) that Natasha started to speak. “I’ve been paying attention to you. During the fights, around your team. You remind me of a young me.”

Alex smirked. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because young me was an indoctrinated assassin spy who trusted no one.”

Alex looked unconcerned. “Your point?”

“Trust your team. Trust your friends. As far as I can tell, you trust only one person. Maybe two if you combine the few other people you partially trust. That is  _ not _ healthy.”

Alex took a sip of her coffee. “I’m fine.”

Natasha assessed her. “Well, when you’re not, remember what I said. And give me a call.”

“Sure.” Alex said. “I’ll do that.”

Natasha was only 63% sure she was lying.

They both looked away at the same time, scanning the coffee shop for threats.

 

Alex stayed late at work, that night, running through the reports SHIELD sent over (and the ones they didn’t), and testing one of her new concoctions. Of course, her microscope decided to spaz out on her and then Lucy sent a very pointed memo about working late, and the SHIELD reports were not very clear at  _ all, _ but she pushed through and ended up with ten pages of helpful notes and a concoction that increased cellular regeneration by 34%.

When she finally dragged herself home, Kara was sitting on the couch watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. Alex grunted in greeting and stuck her head in the fridge, digging out a beer and a microwave meal.

Kara came over and took the meal out of her hands, shooing her gently towards the couch. “You were at work way too late.”

Alex shrugged. “I had stuff to do, and no plans for this evening.”

Kara opened a drawer for some silverware after putting the meal in the microwave. “You should make some friends, Alex. You need something outside of work.”

Alex slammed her beer down. “What is this, pick on Alex day? First Lucy comments on my social life, then the Black Widow of all people gives me a lecture on trust, and now you’re nagging me about making friends! Do you think I haven’t tried? Everybody I know is either someone from work, and thus unavailable, or one of  _ your _ friends who just tolerates me. And before you get on my case about meeting new people, I’ve talked to people in bars and in coffee shops and in stores. No one wants to be my friend!”

Kara jerked back at Alex’s vehement words. She twiddled with her fingers while Alex angrily swallowed her beer and got up to get another one.

“I’m sorry.” Kara finally said. “I don’t mean to pick on you.”

Alex sighed and ran her hand down her face. “I know. I’m sorry for snapping. It’s been a long day, which is no excuse, but I’ll be better next time.”

Kara handed her the now-warm food and softly led her to the table. “Why can’t you make friends at work? That’s where I make most of my friends.”

Alex let Kara push in her chair for her. “Most people at the DEO are scared of me or under my command. The ones that aren’t are Lucy, J’onn, and Vasquez. Lucy’s my boss, so I can’t be friends with her . . .”

“You can be friends with your boss.” Kara protested. “I am.”

“Yeah, but you’re you.” Alex said. “You’re friends with everybody.”

“Will you try for me? I’ll invite her to some more game nights so you can get to know her outside of being an agent.”

Alex shrugged. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot. But no guarantees.”

Kara nodded solemnly. “You’ll do your best, that’s all I ask.”

Alex squinted. “Riiiiight. And J’onn is, well, you know.”

Kara nodded again. “Hard to be friends with your dad.”

“Exactly. And Vasquez doesn’t talk about anything personal ever. I’m not even sure she has a life.”

“Then you guys can find one together! Have lunch together or something.”

“You mean like when you bullied her into buying lunch for me?”

“Didn’t you have fun?”

“Yeah, I guess. We didn’t really talk much.”

Kara frowned. “Have lunch with her again and ask her about her hobbies. It’s a good start.”

“Fine.” Alex said. Why was Kara so adamant about this?

Kara hummed thoughtfully “What about that detective, Sawyer? You two get along really well and have talked about non-work stuff.”

Alex snorted. “She’s the first one I asked. She basically implied she wanted to keep our relationship professional.”

“Oh.” Kara’s frown deepened.

“It’s fine.” Alex said, not wanting to see Kara so unhappy. “I’ve got you, Winn’s nice, we’re getting to be friends. He invited my to join his Pathfinder group. I’ve even texted with Wanda a little bit, so there’s another friend. I’ll try with Lucy and Vasquez. And there’s this guy that goes running every morning same time I do that seems friendly enough. Give it some time, I’ll find a friend or two.”

“Okay.” Kara’s frown eased. Not completely, but enough for Alex to relax again.

“C’mon.” Alex said. “I’m exhausted. I just want to eat dinner, cuddle with you on the couch while watching mindless TV, and go to bed.”

Kara’s frown finally disappeared. “We can do that.”


	7. Interagency “Cooperation”

Alex was transcribing her barely legible notes in her office when there was a knock on her door. “Come in.”

A rookie agent stepped in. “More reports from the investigative team, ma’am. Also, Directors Lane and Henshaw would like you in Conference Room J. As soon as possible.”

He stepped forward and hesitantly laid the stack of files on her desk.

Alex nodded and swept her own notes into a folder, shoving it into her side bag. She grabbed the reports and added them to the bag, then looked up at the rookie. “What are you still doing here?”

He gulped and stumbled around, practically sprinting out the door.

 

Director Lane spun towards Alex as soon as she entered. “Do you have your go-bag packed?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Great. Grab Vasquez, pick a couple of agents and take the jet to New York.”

“Ma’am?”

“Didn’t you get the reports?”

“Just now, ma’am, when your messenger asked me to come here. No chance to read them yet.”

Lucy growled incoherently and mimed strangling someone. J’onn sighed and took over.

“Short version of what’s in those files. We found the perpetrators who robbed the store. They said they were hired to do it. From the information they’ve given us about their employer, it is very likely it was the same person who hired Mr. Nagen to destroy the plaza. They had the same method of payment using the same banks and untraceable transfers, the same methods of communication, the same phrasing in the notes, and it even appears to be the same typewriter.”

Alex frowned, flipping through the reports to find the pertinent pages, and comparing them to her notes.

Lucy finally found her voice. “So, we’re setting up a meet between you and the Avengers. I want you spearheading this, but take Vasquez with you. She’s the official liaison with SHIELD. You’ll be technically working with the Avengers as a separate entity, but she could be useful if SHIELD starts making noise about being left out.” Lucy leaned forward, staring intently at Alex. “Now if these perps have got a fascination with Kara, I want them destroyed. Completely taken apart, you understand me?”

Alex nodded. “Absolutely, ma’am.”

Lucy straightened up. “Good. Pick a team, go to New York, get all the information you can, and take this bastard down.”

Alex barely let Lucy stop talking before she was out the door, scribbling on her notepad, and tucking her phone to her ear.

“Hey, Kara, do you want to take a trip to New York?”

_ Sure! Are we flying? _

“I’m taking the jet because I’m taking a team. You can come along with, or meet us there.”

_ I’ll meet you; I’ve got a couple articles to finish. Where will you be? _

“Avengers Tower. Jet to the airport, helicopter to the pad on top of the tower.”

_ Oh, cool! I’ve been wanting to meet the rest of the team. I’ll meet you on the helipad, in say, six hours? _

Alex glanced at her watch. “Yeah, that should do it. Don’t forget to account for time zones, and I’ll see you tonight.”

 

Alex strode into the command center. “Vasquez, find a replacement, you’re with me. You, rookie, find Bering, Wells, and Donovan, and tell them to get their go-bags and meet me in my office.”

The rookie scurried off as Alex strode out of the command center.

Vasquez quickly caught up with Alex. “What’s the play, ma’am?”

“We’re forming a task force to deal with whoever it is who’s been making trouble lately. We’ll be flying to New York to work with the Avengers.”

Alex waved at an office staff member and handed him her bag. “I need fifteen copies of all the reports and notes in here, asap. Pack them in separate folders and bring them to the jet.”

The staff member nodded furiously and sprinted off.

“So,” Alex said, as they headed to the locker rooms. “Official liaison to SHIELD.”

Vasquez smirked ever so slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That explains a lot.”

“I was told to be discreet.”

“Of course.” Alex paused. “You didn’t tell them I have access, did you?”

“No, ma’am!” Vasquez was emphatic. “My loyalties are with Supergirl and the DEO.”

Alex allowed herself a satisfied smile. Vasquez’s priorities were as they should be. “I knew you were a good agent.”

Vasquez nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. Permission to get my go-bag?”

“Yeah, yeah, get whatever you need. Wheels up in thirty.”

 

Alex spent the five-hour plane ride catching the other agents up to speed and assigning tasks for when they reached the Avengers Tower.

Agent Donovan was quiet for all of the first twenty minutes of Alex’s explanation, before raising her hand and blurting out, “Do you know if FitzSimmons are at the tower or the playground? Skye said Tony called them in for a consult.”

“Skye?” Alex asked. Donovan was on nickname basis with Quake?

“Well, Daisy, Daisy Johnson, but I knew her before she changed her name. Old habits, you know. She still calls me by my handle.”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know, Vasquez?”

Vasquez tapped at her tablet. “None of the Bus team are at the tower, unfortunately.”

Claudia slumped back in her chair and sighed. “Who am I supposed to hang with? You folks are all old and boring.”

Myka reached over and smacked Claudia. “Be professional!” she hissed, glancing nervously at Alex.

Alex twitched the corner of her mouth in what would have been a smile to anyone who knew her well enough (a list of two: Kara and J’onn). She was already impressed by the three transfers she’d pulled out of their ‘Welcome to the DEO Training”, but it was obvious Bering was worried about making a good impression. It didn’t look like anything worried Wells, and Donovan was so far from being a typical agent that Alex didn’t think impressing anyone was even on her radar.

Alex made a small concession before focusing back on their tasks. “Wanda and her brother will be there, and Supergirl is meeting us. I assure you, those three are anything but boring.”

 

Wanda, Pepper, and Pietro were on the roof to meet them when they exited the Stark helicopter that had picked them up at the airport. Kara and Pietro immediately began testing their speed against each other by playing that hand slapping game. Their arms were blue and silver blurs. Eventually, Wanda hauled them apart with her telekinesis. “If you two are done, we can give you the tour.”

They both nodded seriously and immediately tried to smack each other again.

Alex very pointedly did not roll her eyes. “You go ahead, Supergirl. Take Agent Donovan with you. Donovan, I expect you to be able to instruct us on maneuvering the building when you get back.” Alex said, winking at Claudia.

Claudia beamed, saluted Alex (both regular and Vulcan) and sidled up next to Supergirl.

Alex turned back to Pepper. “I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes about logistics, if that’s okay?”

“Absolutely!” Pepper said. “We can get you and your agents set up in your quarters while we wait for the team and their SHIELD liaison to get here. We’ve planned a full meeting for tomorrow morning, but I thought we could do a brief mixer tonight with introductions.”

 

“Can we go say hi to Nat?” Kara asked Wanda as they headed down the stairs.

“Of course. I think she and Clint are playing Fruit Ninja.”

“They’re playing Fruit Ninja? I love that game!” Kara squealed.

“Well, they play it a bit differently,” Wanda explained as she led the way through the Avenger’s tower. “You’ll see,” she said in reply to Kara’s questioning look.

They opened the door to one of the gyms on the top floor and Kara gasped in excitement. Clint was perched on a counter next to a conveyor belt. The belt was moving faster than any conveyor belt Kara had ever seen bringing loads of fruit and . . . bombs? Yes, those were bombs. Made to look like the cliché cartoon of a bomb, but most definitely live, and trundling along the conveyor belt with every type of fruit on earth. Clint was grabbing the fruit and bombs off the belt and throwing them at Natasha, who was cheerfully slicing through the flying objects with a sword.

“Tony makes them play on the top floor to avoid major structural damage if Nat misses a bomb. Not that she ever has. He totally added the conveyor belt and stuff, though. And the sliced fruit goes into the kitchen. We’ve been having a lot of fruit salad lately. It’s a good thing Steve and Thor eat so much.”

Kara frowned. “You’re supposed to miss the bombs in Fruit Ninja.”

“Well, sure, but then they would hit the wall and blow up and Tony would get mad. So, he built them so that if Nat severs the bomb in the right place it defuses instead of blowing up.”

“Ohhh! Cool.” Kara smiled. “I bet Alex would like this. She’s really good with a blade.”

“Yeah?” Wanda snorted. It seemed like Kara talked of no one else.

“Yeah! She almost killed me with one once. Actually killed my aunt too, and my aunt was a Kryptonian General!”

Claudia blinked and turned from her inspection of a bomb. “I think your family is more messed up than mine.”

 

Pepper waved Alex and the other three agents forward. “We’ve set up a floor for you. Dorms, a lab, a computer station, a small gym. You’ve been added to the security, right, Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Potts.” Jarvis’s disembodied voice echoed down the hall. “All five agents, plus Supergirl.”

“Great,” Pepper said. “You’re welcome here anytime. I imagine there will be a lot of going back and forth between here and National City for both teams, so make yourself at home.”

Pepper exited the elevator several floors down. “Here we are!”

Alex scanned the room. “Thank you, Ms. Potts. Vasquez, Bering, Wells, get everything set up.” Alex eyed them, making sure they knew exactly what she had been referencing when she said ‘set up’. Bering nodded professionally, Wells winked cheekily, and Vasquez completely ignored Alex as she was already waist deep in computers. Alex turned back to Ms. Potts. “Do we have access to SHIELD files from here?”

Pepper smiled. “Yes. But don’t tell Fury that.”

Alex laughed. “A woman after my own heart.”

Pepper merely winked. “Now, if you would like a tour of the other facilities? Perhaps be introduced to what Avengers are here? I believe Bruce is still at the university and Steve is at the VA with Sam and Bucky, but the others are around somewhere.”

Alex shrugged. “Agents?”

Vasquez nodded and tapped a final line into the computers. “That would be nice.” The other two shook their heads, indicating they would rather finish setting up.

Alex turned to Pepper. “I’d love a tour. Any chance we could see your labs?”

“Absolutely! Tony is in his right now, so we can start there.”

 

“Tony! The DEO is here.”

Tony looked up from his screwdriver. Dummy rotated as well, pointing a fire extinguisher at the group. He gave them a once over. “Is it Thursday already?” He wiped his hands on a rag and threw it on the table. “More government lackeys?”

Pepper glared at him. “These are the good ones; I did my research.”

Tony walked up. “Poor pay, don’t know how to party, never seen the inside of a lab before, am I right?”

Alex eyed Tony. He played the happy-go-lucky billionaire very well. Nearly as well as she’d played the carefree college student. She’d honestly been expecting someone like Maxwell Lord, but Tony had a conscience. Alex could see the shadowed guilt in his eyes. It matched what she saw in the mirror every morning.

She shrugged. “I think we must frequent different clubs. Mine tend not to let lecherous old men in. Are you working on the thermal expansion problem your suit has? I noticed you’ve been having trouble.”

Tony popped some dried blueberries in his mouth. “I like you. What makes you think it’s a thermal expansion problem?”

Alex smirked. “Well, I was reviewing the footage of your latest fights and screw ups, and correlated with the weather records, as well as munitions use . . .” the two of them moved deeper into the lab, as Tony pulled up holograms with the information Alex was referencing.

 

Pepper looked over to the woman standing next to her. “Would you like to continue the tour without her, Agent Vasquez?”

Vasquez cracked a half smile. “If we wait for her, we’ll be here all night, so yes, I think that would be best.”

 

A couple hours later the agents managed to pull Tony and Alex away from the lab, turn off the Fruit Ninja conveyor belt, and gather everybody into the lush lounge near the middle of the tower for their ‘get-to-know-you mixer’. Tony waved a hand at a blonde woman as they walked in.

“That’s Dr. Eliza Danvers. She’s our . . . handler, for lack of a better word.”

Alex tripped as she turned. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

“You know Dr. Danvers?” pretty much the whole room asked in chorus.

Alex ignored her, focusing on Eliza. “You’re in charge of the Avengers? How did that happen?”

“Nick Fury asked for my help after Phil, Agent Coulson, was injured. Seemed to think raising an alien would be helpful in dealing with a bunch of Superheroes, and I must say, after raising you and Kara, the Avengers were easy.”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered,” Tony said.

“Same.” Alex frowned.

“Wait!” Kara butted in. “You told them who I am? Without my permission?”

“They already knew, dear.” Eliza turned a sour eye on Alex. “Which I was not happy to find out. You need to be more careful with your sister’s identity.”

Kara folded her arms. “She didn’t tell them, and that is not the point, Eliza. My identity is my business and Alex has never talked to anyone about it without my permission, unlike you. Or Kal-El. Or James. So, you can’t get mad at her about it.”

Eliza nodded distractedly, turning back towards Alex. “And threatening men in the mall? That’s rather irresponsible. I expect better from a representative from the DEO.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped as she eyed her mother. “How long have you been doing this? Handling the Avengers?”

Eliza picked up a tablet. “About four years. Now shall we get down to business?”

Alex scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Four years? Four years.” She walked over to Tony’s well-stocked bar and poured herself a healthy drink. “Unbelievable.”

“What is so unbelievable about it?” Eliza asked. “And stop this passive aggressive nonsense.”

Alex downed her drink and poured another one.

“I’ll be as passive aggressive as I want.” Alex waved her glass in her mom’s direction. “You’ve been working here four years. What was it you said last year? Something about lying to you for years about the DEO? You never thought to mention you worked for SHIELD? Or that all those ‘biology conferences’ were actually you coming to New York to mess with superheroes. Oh, and working with superheroes is fine, as long as Kara doesn’t become one. Or as long as I don’t work with her.”

Alex took a break to gulp the drink in her hand. “And what about security clearances huh?”

Her hand was steady as she poured yet another drink. “You never thought to check SHIELD’s records about Cadmus or J’onn or Dad? You could have asked Heimdall for that matter. But no, no, we needed to panic and worry and search for Dad for ages.”

Another drink swallowed, another drink poured. “So much for trust and support and honesty in the family.”

The glass was emptied once more, but her hand never quivered as she emptied the bottle of whiskey into her tumbler.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “You know, I don’t usually say this, but maybe you should slow down.”

Alex grinned, raising her glass in a toast. “You should have seen me in college. Damn, I had so much fun.”

“Alexandra! I expect professional demeanor from you, and that includes your language. This is unacceptable.”

Alex looked straight into her mother’s eyes. “Go to hell, Eliza, because we are done.” She drained her glass and strode towards the door. “Kara, take me home.”

Kara fell into step beside Alex. "But . . .”

“Either you fly me home, Kara, or I commandeer a helicopter.”

Kara sighed. “You can’t pilot a helicopter this drunk.”

“Watch me.”

Kara turned to the others in the room. “Okay, why don’t you all get to know each other for a bit. I’ll be right back. And I’m borrowing a coat.”

 

Kara wrapped Alex up in the massive fur coat Pepper handed her and flew as fast as she could (as fast as was safe for humans, that is) towards National City. She landed softly on the roof of Alex's apartment building.

Alex shoved Kara away and threw the coat at her. The lights of the city were beautiful, and normally Alex would stop to admire them with Kara, but instead, Alex stormed to the door, running into it with her shoulder before getting it open.

Kara stepped forward to help, but Alex shoved her away again.

“I do not want your help, Kara. I don’t want to talk to you or anybody, I don’t want to think about anything. I just want to forget.”

“Alex, please . . .”

“NO! Leave me alone.” Alex glared stormily at Kara, then fumbled with her phone, ordering an Uber.

“Where are you going?” Kara asked.

“Never you mind,” Alex said, stumbling down the stairs and into her room where she dug a bag out of the back of her closet. “Go back to New York. We need to get started on this case.”

Kara sighed, reaching towards Alex.

Alex flinched away.

Kara winced and stepped back, raising her hands in surrender. “Can I come pick you up in the morning?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine by then.” Alex said, making her way toward the front door. “Now leave and don’t follow me and don’t show up before 8 tomorrow. You promise!”

A pained look crossed Kara’s face. She wanted to help Alex so much. If she hurt, Kara hurt.

Kara closed her eyes and started reciting the agreement they’d arranged in college. “I promise not to follow you. I promise not to use my superior senses to track you. I promise to be patient while you go through your coping methods. But please . . .” Kara wasn’t even sure what she was begging for.

Alex paused, still facing away from Kara and recited her half of the promise. “I promise not to get blackout drunk. I promise not to do anything illegal. I promise I will talk to you when I am done processing.”

Kara opened her eyes and Alex was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I really like xavacid’s Not Just an Ordinary Day series, and she brought in Agent Myka Bering, which was absolutely brilliant. So, I thought, when I needed a few agents for Alex’s task force, why not her? And then I couldn’t have Myka without Helena or Claudia, and I couldn’t talk about epic tech and computers in the Marvel world without Skye and FitzSimmons, and basically I have no self-control is what I’m saying.


	8. A Sisterly Intervention

After bribing Winn to track Maggie’s phone, and a quick flight and change later, Kara entered the bar and looked around. Maggie was leaning up against the pool table, smack talking . . . Kate Kane? Kara blinked. She would have to deal with that another time. Tonight she was on a mission, and it needed to happen fast.

“Hey, Maggie!”

Maggie glanced up. “Hey. Kara, right? Danvers’ sister?”

Kate raised her eyebrows at that, but a minuscule shake of the head stopped her from saying anything. Kara fiddled with her glasses. “Yeah, Alex is my sister. I was wondering if we could have a word?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Maggie followed Kara a few steps away, as they ducked into the back hall for a bit of privacy.

Kara fixed Maggie with a fierce glare. “Do you like Alex?”

Maggie’s forehead wrinkled. “Sure, I like her. She’s a good agent, keeps her head under pressure, has my back, funny when she wants to be.”

Kara folded her arms. “So why won’t you be her friend?”

“What? Why do you say that?” Maggie bristled. “Does she have a problem with me and was too chicken to talk to me about herself?”

Kara snorted. “Of course not. Alex would never ask me to do something like this. She fights her own battles. She never asks me for help.”

“So . . . why are you here?”

Kara sighed and looked over Maggie’s shoulder. “She’s had kind of a rough day and refuses to talk to me. She needs a friend. You two get along pretty well . . . from what I’ve heard!” Kara hastily added. “Anyway, I just wanted to know why you weren’t friends. And see if I could change that.”

“What makes you think we’re not friends?”

“She said she tried to be your friend but you said to keep things professional.”

Maggie folded her own arms. “That’s not what happened.”

Kara shrugged. “All I know is she needs a friend and doesn’t think you are one.”

Maggie slumped back against the wall. “Well, this explains why she’s been avoiding me.”

Kara winced. “Yeah.”

“Why come to me?” Maggie asked.

“She doesn’t really have any friends, and most of her acquaintances are too close to the problem. I think maybe she needs someone she can talk about work with. Or someone who can be objective about all the family drama. I don’t know and she won’t talk to me!” Kara tightened her hand into a fist and angrily adjusted her glasses.

Maggie straightened up and clapped Kara on the shoulder. Kara didn’t even seem to register it. Maggie shook her head. “I’ll try to talk with her, but I can’t guarantee anything. She might not even want to be my friend anymore. But I’d like to be hers. I kind of thought we were already, to be honest.”

Kara beamed. “Thanks, Maggie!”

“Sure, sure.” Maggie turned to go and then swung back. “Oh, and Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you know my girlfriend?”

Kara tripped over her feet and stuttered. “Who . . . what . . . your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, my girlfriend, Kate.” Maggie gestured to Kate Kane, who was leaning seductively against the pool table. “It looked like you recognized her.”

“Oh.” Kara blinked several times and cleared her throat. “I don’t think we’ve met. She must have just reminded me of someone.”

“Okay.” Maggie shook her head.

 

\---

 

Alex stared in confusion at the figure leaning against her door holding a pizza box. “How did you know where I live? And don’t say you’re a detective, you detect. You are way too fond of that phrase.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “You are really hard to find, you know that, right?”

Alex frowned. “What are you doing here, Sawyer.”

“Heard you needed a friend.”

“You can go tell Kara I’m just fine.” Alex scowled. “And we’re not friends. You made that pretty clear.”

“You’re reading a lot into it that wasn’t there,” Maggie said. “I just had plans. I was going to ask for a raincheck, but you hung up on me.”

“You only said you had plans after I said it was a social thing.”

“You know, for a secret agent, you’re pretty bad at figuring out what’s going on.”

“I can’t do this. Not now.” Alex stretched out her bruised knuckles and finally managed to grasp the key well enough to open the lock. She slid through the door and slammed it in Maggie’s face.

Bonus number two of reinforced construction: you can slam a door as hard as you like. Of course, that doesn’t stop people from pounding on the door. Alex yelled at Maggie to go away, but then remembered she’d soundproofed the apartment.

Stomping to the front door (well, as well as she could with a bum leg), she yanked it open and snapped. “Get the hell away from here and forget you know anything about this place.”

Maggie stuck her foot in the door jam. “You’re pretty beat up. What happened?”

“None of your business.”

Maggie sighed. “Look. You’re drunk and look like you went ten rounds with a Helgramite. You’re refusing to talk to Kara. She’s worried enough that my girlfriend told me to leave a perfectly great date night to hunt you down. I care about you and I’m worried too.”

“It was 15 rounds, and he was completely human, thank you very much. At least, I think he was. He was wearing a beanie that he refused to take off.”

Maggie gaped. “You’re shitting me. You go to a fight club? Do you know how dangerous that is? Not to mention illegal?”

“It’s not a fight club. It’s a martial arts gym, with safety equipment optional after 10 pm.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Is it run by a really hot chick?”

Alex rolled her eyes. “No. We arrested Roulette weeks ago. And it isn’t illegal.”

“But still really dangerous.”

“That’s kind of the point,” Alex said, contemplating if it was worth the effort to make Maggie go away, and deciding Maggie was too stubborn. She turned and walked into her apartment, leaving the door open.

Maggie shut the door and followed Alex into the back office where Alex thumbed open a safe and took out a bottle of pills. “What are those? Are you doing drugs too, or are you just a masochistic alcoholic?”

Alex groaned as she tried to open the cap. “Can you get this for me?”

“Not until you tell me what they are.”

“Regen drugs from work. They’re not addictive. Should get me healed up before Kara comes to fly me to New York. I don’t want her to worry.”

“She already is,” Maggie said, but opened the cap.

Alex shook a few into her hand and dry swallowed them. She limped into the kitchen and opened her fridge, hissing a little. “Figures. It’s empty. Know any places that deliver this late? Regen drugs take a lot of energy.”

Maggie waved the pizza box. “I’ve got a whole ham and sausage right here, but only if you talk to me.”

Alex eyed the box and mentally weighed the benefits of immediate food against having to actually talk about stuff.

“I got into an argument with my mother,” Alex said, and swiped the pizza box out of Maggie’s hands.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Okay. About what?”

Alex hastily chewed and swallowed. “She’s being a hypocrite. And getting mad at me about stuff I can’t control. Like stuff Kara does. Yeah, it’s my job to protect Kara, but I’ve been doing that! And you try stopping Kara when she wants to do something. It’s last Thanksgiving all over again, only worse.” Alex took another massive bite of the pizza and gulped it down with half a bottle of water. “Man these drugs suck.”

“She’s being a hypocrite?” Maggie asked, perching herself on a bar stool.

“How did you find me?” Alex countered.

Maggie snuck a piece of pizza, acknowledging that she wouldn’t get any more out of Alex. “Well, first I asked Kara, obviously. She gave me a list of bars to check, but you weren’t at any of them, nor had been seen there, so I decided to wait for you at home. That’s when I realized I don’t have your address. I called Kara, but she wouldn’t tell me. I checked your emergency contact information but there were only phone numbers listed. Kara’s and your boss?” Maggie looked incredulously at Alex.

Alex shrugged. “If I’m hurt, that’s who they should call.”

“Your boss? I mean, I get Kara, but your boss? Do you know how much flak I would get if I tried to make my boss my emergency contact?”

“Hank’s different.”

Maggie laughed. “He sure is. I called him, to see if he knows where you live. He claims he doesn’t know, which I don’t believe for a second, but he’s pretty sure you live with Kara. He wasn’t happy about that, by the way, not having a real address on file for you. He wasn’t happy in general when I mentioned you, actually. He sounded pretty worried.”

Alex had to force her latest bite of pizza down her throat. Disappointing her mom was expected; she could handle that. She didn’t think she could handle disappointing J’onn.

Maggie kept talking, seemingly oblivious to Alex’s inner turmoil. “Then, I tried Winn, but he is apparently terrified of you. Sputtered something about the index finger of death. You don’t need to look so smug about it!” Maggie added on at Alex’s instinctual smirk. “Anyway, after that I gave up trying your friends and looked up your driver’s license. It’s registered to Kara’s apartment, did you know?”

Alex just stared at Maggie.

“Right, of course you knew.” Maggie continued. “When that came up with no new information, I tried to put a trace on your phone. Funnily enough, it didn’t work.” Maggie raised an eyebrow. “I need whatever tech you guys have, because it really impressed my computer guy.”

Alex shook her head. “Not going to happen.”

Maggie shrugged. “Worth a shot. Finally, I ran your financials, which took me two serious favors, you know. It’s not exactly legal. You should be grateful I care.”

Alex clenched her fist beneath the table. Just another way she had failed people. Maggie shouldn’t break the law just because Alex couldn’t hold it together.

“Luckily, tracing your money told me you own this building, I came, I chatted up the doorman . . .”

“How did that work for you?” Alex asked.

“Do you only hire law students?” Maggie asked. “I had to flash my badge and even then he wouldn’t give me a key!”

“They are instructed not to provide entrance to private residences without a warrant. I’m very careful about how this building gets managed.”

“Well, he finally conceded that the hallways are considered mostly public and I could wait there. He refused to give me an apartment number, but I figured you’d be top floor because of Supergirl, so I came up here and knocked a few doors. Your neighbors have never heard your name, by the way, but recognized your photo. They weren’t all surprised a detective was looking for you. Seem to think you’re involved in some shady stuff, coming and going all hours of the night.”

“I just wanted to be left alone,” Alex grumbled. “Perfect anonymity here and you’ve ruined that.” She finished off the pizza and stood up, pulling on her jacket.

“Where are you going?” Maggie asked.

“Somewhere where I’m anonymous and can get lots of food. Look, I talked about my emotions, thank you for the pizza, now leave and forget you know my address.”

Maggie looked at Alex. It didn’t seem like talking had helped at all, even Maggie’s attempt at a humorous story about stalking Alex hadn’t distracted her. But, the way Alex was looking, any more pushing on Maggie’s part would probably end with a fist to the face and Maggie didn’t think she could beat Alex at hand-to-hand. Even with Alex injured.

“Okay. Okay.” Maggie said, raising her hands and walking towards the door. “I’m leaving. But if you need to talk, you have my number.”

“Sure thing.” Alex didn’t even try to be believable.


	9. New York, New York

By 8 the next morning the regen drugs had done their work. Alex was still a bit sore and stiff but could pass it off as a hangover. She was waiting on the roof, wrapped in a massive coat, when Kara floated down.  
“Are we going to talk about last night?” Kara asked. “Because you know you can talk to me about anything and I don’t understand why you didn’t.”  
Alex rubbed her hand over her face. “Can we shelve the discussion for later? I’m still processing.”  
Kara wrapped Alex up in a hug. “Not too much later, okay? I’m worried about you.”  
Alex nodded. “Yeah, okay.”  
  
Alex walked into the conference room exactly at 8:30, her head high and her eyes hard. She directed her agents to sit spaced out around the table and passed out folders of information in preparation. The Avengers trickled in one at a time before the meeting at nine. They were nearly all there, even their SHIELD liaison, Dr. Danvers. Alex had empty seats on either side of her. Alex turned her head briefly to glance at the clock, and when she turned back Nat had appeared in the chair next to her.  
Alex blinked once at Nat, then spoke. “Who’s in charge of the Avengers?”  
The Avengers looked at each other. “We don’t really have anyone in charge.”  
“Okay, so if I don’t have time to run a decision by the whole group, who do I ask?”  
“Steve.”  
“Great. Let’s start with what we know. I have some ideas for how to proceed after that, but we’ll see what changes with the new information.”  
“Alex,” Eliza started.  
Alex looked at her mother with a completely blank look on her face. “Please address me as Agent Danvers if you need to speak to me. Also, you are only here as a liaison between SHIELD and the Avengers. The DEO has its own liaison with SHIELD, so please stick to your assigned duties, as the DEO has no need for your help at this time.”  
“DEO has a liaison with SHIELD?” Steve asked.  
“Yes. Agent Vasquez here.” Alex said, pointing her out.  
The Avengers all nodded pleasantly at her, then focused back on their folders. Eliza sat back with a slight frown on her face as the group settled down to work.  
  
They made it several hours before eyes started to cross and brains started to leak with all the information being relayed between the teams.  
Alex glanced around the table and shut her folder with a sharp clack. “Okay people, time for a break. Everybody stretch, get some food, go for a walk, forget about work for a while.”  
Alex headed down to the bottom floor. There was a whoosh as she headed outside and Kara appeared next to her in casual clothes. “Are you going out? Can I come?”  
“I just want a walk and some coffee.”  
Kara slid her glasses down her nose and scanned the area. “There’s a Starbucks a few blocks that way. They have those Nutella hot-chocolates right now, and their muffins are really good . . .”  
Alex gave Kara a half smile. “Okay, you. Let’s feed the monster.”  
“Hey!” Kara protested, but not very much. It was nice to hear Alex joking around again, like maybe she was fine.  
“Can we go shopping while we’re here?” Kara asked as they walked.  
Alex swung open the door to the second closest Starbucks. “You want to go shopping? We’re not going to be in New York very long.”  
“But there are stores here that they don’t have back home and I need new clothes! My old ones are wearing out. And Ms. Grant keeps making comments.”  
Alex rolled her eyes. “She always makes comments.”  
“Yeah, but I want some different clothes. It’s like everyone expects me to wear pastels. I do like other things too, you know.”  
“I suppose we could look around a little while we’re here. Find one store they don’t have back home, and we’ll go there.”  
“Thank you!” Kara gave Alex a one-armed hug. “You’re the absolute best. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  
They’d reached the counter by that point so Alex couldn’t refute Kara’s statement. The cashier looked up with what appeared to be a genuine smile. “Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get for you?”  
Alex glanced at the menu. “Uh, an extra-large Nutella hot chocolate with extra cream, two blueberry muffins . . .” Kara poked Alex in the side a few times. “Make that five blueberry muffins, and a large coffee with a shot of espresso.”  
Kara leaned into Alex while Alex pulled out her wallet. “I’m going to grab us a table.”  
Alex hummed distractedly, too busy glaring down the fellow in the corner that was leering at Kara. The cashier leaned forward as she accepted the cash. “Is your wife pregnant? She’s absolutely glowing. It’s so nice to see a happy couple like you.”  
Alex opened her mouth to correct the cashier when Kara interrupted with a wicked grin on her face, dropping a loud kiss on Alex’s cheek. “Yes! It’s twins. We’re so excited!”  
The cashier beamed. “Congratulations! Here, have a Danish on the house. You’ll need to keep up your strength!” She passed Kara the five muffins and the Danish, before bustling to the next customer.  
Alex glowered mulishly as she waited for their orders. She was sure Kara had done that just to try to cheer her up. Usually, it was fun, pulling one over on oblivious people, but she really wasn’t in the mood right now. But she was going to have to go with it or they would get called out on acquiring food under false pretenses. Meanwhile, Kara was happily demolishing the first of the muffins at the table and completely ignoring the guy that was now trying to make small talk as if she hadn’t just lied to a whole store full of strangers. Though, Alex considered, that was a much better show of lying than Kara usually could come up with. Maybe it was a good thing.  
When the barista passed the cups over he smiled at Alex. “I added an extra shot of espresso to your coffee. You’ll need it.”  
Alex grunted in thanks, then strode to the table where Kara was. She shifted Kara off the chair, sitting herself down instead, and pulled Kara into her lap with the ease that comes from years of practice. Placing her own kiss on Kara’s cheek, she said, “Here’s your hot chocolate honey,” and glared at the guy. “This guy bothering you?”  
“Nope,” Kara said, breaking off a piece of the Danish and feeding it to Alex. She glanced at the guy, who had blanched and quickly turned back to his own drink at their display. “Not anymore.”  
  
It took the rest of the day for the task force to just get through the sheer volume of information they had. There were many attacks and robberies that they thought were instigated by the same perpetrator, and most of them involved just the DEO or SHIELD, not both.  
Alex leaned back in her chair. “Well, I think we can agree that all these events have a similar pattern. This looks like we’ve got one perp, or one group, behind this. Whoever they are, they’ve got a predilection for hiring aliens or inhumans. No worries about leaving their employees in the lurch, but pay well enough it doesn’t matter.”  
Nat continued. “They’ve stolen a lot of old tech. My guess is they’re researching something specific. Not sure what, but a thorough search of the copies in the SHIELD and DEO archives should help us figure out what was taken.”  
The rest of the group made agreeing noises.  
“All right, we’ve done good work today,” Alex said. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow for assignments. Go get some rest.”  
The group quickly disbanded; Tony offering the lounge up for drinks, popcorn, and a fantastic alien movie they could make fun of. Eliza once again attempted to talk to Alex, but she ducked out and dashed up the stairs after Kara. Kara had reluctantly passed on the movie and headed out, citing work.  
Once on the roof, Kara wrapped Alex in another huge hug.  
“I’ve gotten a ton of emails about work. I really need to be back in National City, so we’ll have to postpone shopping.” Kara said, speaking softly into Alex’s ear. “Will you still be here tonight?”  
Alex nodded into Kara’s shoulder. “Tonight and tomorrow. A quick meet in the morning to assign specific tasks, then we’ll fly back. Meet you for dinner?”  
“Yes! I’ll put in an order at that Thai place.” Kara held Alex firmly for a moment before reluctantly stepping back.  
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Alex gave Kara a swift kiss on the cheek and watched her fly out of sight, before taking the elevator down to the floor assigned them. There was a nice, private gym waiting for her there.


	10. Stronger Together

The next morning’s meetings went much better. Eliza Danvers wasn’t there, for one, and all the agents were well-rested. Every one of them had excellent suggestions on where they could go next in their investigation. It took a little finagling to get the logistics sorted, but Alex deemed it a productive meeting. And, while heading back to National City, she was even able to do some lab work remotely on the plane. None of the actual experimentation, of course, but she ran a couple models of her personal project and came up with a few tweaks for her next test. She was getting close to a solution, she could feel it.

Once they got back to the base, Alex dismissed the other agents and checked out a DEO sedan. She drove straight from the airport to the Thai place down the street from Kara’s apartment. Grabbing her go-bag, since she’d probably end up staying the night anyway, she texted Kara to ask if she’d paid for the food yet. At the cheerful “Yes! Under Danvers”, Alex pulled open the restaurant's door, holding it politely for a family coming out.

Alex stepped up to the counter. “Takeout for Danvers?”

The cashier smiled a friendly greeting. “Ah, yes, it’s ready. I’ll go grab it for you.”

As he passed the bags of food across the counter, the cashier cleared his throat. "Um, you don’t have to answer this, obviously, but is your wife pregnant?”

“What?” Alex stared at him. This was the second time in two days. Her brain was too buzzed from work for this.

“Well, from the amount of food you get for just two people, and some of the weird combinations of flavors, it looks an awful lot like she’s pregnant."

Alex grabbed onto the one thing she understood in that sentence. "I never said this was for only two people."

The cashier leaned forward conspiratorially. "When you work in a restaurant as long as I have, you learn things. For example, only two people order from that address. Also, your wife, the blonde, she eats a lot. Most of the time, when a woman is eating that much, it’s ‘cause she’s pregnant. The number of times I’ve seen that!” He shakes his head slowly. “I can guess it before the spouse, usually."

“She’s not pregnant.” Alex blurted.

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “I guess you would know, huh. Not like it could be an accident with you. What’s she do with all this food? It’s not human, the amount she eats!”

“She’s got a really fast metabolism.” Alex tried to do damage control. “And works out a lot.” It never dawned on Alex to deny the wife portion of his statement.

“Lucky girl.” The cashier shook his head once more. “Well, you two have a great night.”

“Thanks. You too.” Alex stammered as she made her escape.

 

Alex realized what else the cashier had said as she walked through Kara’s front door.

“We have to change takeout places,” she blurted out.

Kara jerked her head up from the couch in surprise. “No, Alex, absolutely not.”

“But Kara, they know how much you eat. They’re starting to suspect something! And he recognized me!”

Kara’s eyes widened. "They're the only place that has a sauce spicy enough, Alex! And they have a buy-ten-get-one-free card."

“But . . .”

“Nope.” Kara shook her head vehemently. “And it’s a good thing that he recognizes you! What did you always tell me growing up? Human connections are important?”

Alex sighed. Human connections were bad when said human connection thought she was married to Kara. She’d never be able to show her face there again.

“And if they figure out why you eat so much?” Alex tried weakly to keep arguing.

“Spicy sauce, Alex,” Kara stated.

Alex lifted her hands in defeat. “Fine.” They were only three meals away from a free one anyway. And, knowing Kara, that would happen sometime in the next week.

 

Alex dumped her go-bag in Kara’s bedroom and shucked off her shoes, flopping down on the bed for half a minute of quiet. She sighed heavily. Maybe she could just fall asleep here? She closed her eyes experimentally. Nope. Not physically exhausted enough to turn off her brain. She shoved herself back up and straightened her shoulders. Just a few more hours and then bed, and if she was sleeping with Kara, chances are it would actually be a restful oblivion.

 

Kara avoided anything serious all through dinner and the movie. Finally, Alex nudged Kara in the shoulder. “Just ask. I can tell you’re dying to.”

Kara twisted her fingers. “What was it about Eliza? You normally brush those sort of comments off. Was it just one too many times?”

Alex sighed and let herself acknowledge what she’d been trying to not think about for the past day. “My opinion matters.”

Kara crinkled her nose. “What?”

“My opinion matters too! I have as much right to be heard as anybody and my feelings are important and valid and . . . ” Alex broke off, tucking her head into her arm and dry sobbing. She felt strong arms wrap around her and pull her into Kara’s lap.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry.” Kara kissed the top of Alex’s head and rubbed her back soothingly. “Of course your opinion matters. Your opinion is the most important to me. You know that right? So important. We’ll order from somewhere else next time. Anywhere else.” Kara trailed off into soothing sounds as Alex cried into Kara’s neck.

Eventually, Alex calmed down enough that she started to get embarrassed and tried to pull away from Kara. Kara let her go but kept ahold of her hand as she slunk into the corner of the couch.

“What brought that on?” Kara asked gently.

“Nothing,” Alex muttered. “No big deal.”

“It is.” Kara insisted. “You’re hurting and I want to help.”

Alex shrugged, glancing away. “I feel like no one listens to my opinions. I can’t have an opinion about food because you always have such solid ideas about what’s best. I can’t pick a hobby without Mom harping on me, and now she’s all up in my work and social life too. I get a chance to run an interagency task force and she’s right there to monitor the whole thing and interfere. I mention a guy and she says ‘I thought you were a lesbian, what do you care about guys’. I mention a girl, and she immediately assumes we’re dating. I’m just trying to make friends like you suggested! At work, even though I’m supposed to be in charge of this task force, I’m scared I’ll get superseded by Vasquez or J’onn or Lucy or any of the Avengers or even Winn! They tell me what to do all the time, even when it’s my expertise! Hell, my underwear is the only thing no one else gets a say in and that’s only because I’m not dating anyone!”

Kara frowned and rubbed her thumb across Alex’s knuckles. She was pretty sure Alex was exaggerating. Eliza had said those things, yes, but she was also supportive and accepting, if a little dense sometimes. J’onn had frequently said Alex was his right hand, and Lucy sang Alex’s praises all the time. And Winn was far too terrified of Alex to do anything, even if that seemed to be changing a bit since they were becoming more friendly. But, clearly, Alex felt horrible about the whole situation.

Kara thought back to their recent interactions, trying to remember if she let Alex talk much at all. Or if Alex were ever around to hear what other people thought of her. Maybe if Alex knew that her every statement at the DEO was revered by the agents there, that would help. Or if Alex knew that her work had been published and was considered the pinnacle of bio-engineering. The number of speaking requests that came in the mail boggled Kara. She got them all, since Alex had most of her mail sent to Kara’s house. Her opinion was practically law in many places, the first being the DEO!

Fixing the conviction firmly in her mind, Kara determined to do better about the food and listening to Alex, and to make sure Alex knew what others thought of her. She peeked a glance at Alex, who, while still gripping Kara’s hand, seemed to be pulling away even more.

Kara leaned forward and kissed Alex on the cheek. “I love you. I’m here. I’ll just listen and I promise to do better. You are important. Your opinion is important. So important. I love you so so much.”

With each sentence, Kara gave Alex another kiss. Slowly, Kara felt Alex relax and shift closer to her. Kara kept kissing Alex, peppering her cheeks and forehead and nose and eyelids with small feather light kisses. Alex relaxed more and curled into Kara’s side. Kara wrapped herself around Alex and murmured in Alex’s ear. “I’m so proud of you. Everything you are, everything you’ve done, how brave and strong and wonderful . . .”

Kara could feel Alex shaking her head and nodded firmly. “I am so proud of you! You are amazing!”

“I can’t do it anymore,” Alex said, her voice only audible to Kara’s superhearing. “I can’t be what everyone wants me to be. Especially my mom. I need help.”

Snuggling deeper into the couch, Kara gently ran her hands up and down Alex’s back. “May I suggest something?”

Alex gave a half shrug.

“I want you to be happy and healthy and I don’t know how to help with this problem, but I know someone who does. So, please, take some time tomorrow and take advantage of the mental health benefits the DEO offers.”

Kara wrapped her arms around Alex as Alex shrunk down a little. “I know it’s scary, but you are the bravest person I know. And I will be right there with you, if you want me to. Just take an hour. I’ll set up the appointment and everything. And afterward, you can go home and cope however you like.”

Alex was quite still.

Kara kissed the top of Alex’s head. “Please. You did the first step, asking for help. Now let me help you with the next one.”

Alex stayed still for three long seconds, before slumping in resignation. “Okay.”


	11. Bravery

Alex decidedly did not think about the piece of paper Kara had handed her when she’d walked out the door that morning. It read:  _ Dr. Halling, 774 Terrace 49, National City. 5:30 for the appointment, but be a bit early so you can do the paperwork. _

When Kara had handed her the paper, she had also asked if she’d wanted company, but Alex had shaken her head. She didn’t think she could stand it, having Kara all loving and forgiving there while she admitted all her faults.

“That’s just fine.” Kara had reassured her. “If you ever do want company, or maybe someone to spar with afterwards or whatever, just give me a call. I’m here for you. Oh, another note. She’s a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, so I can promise she will never suggest drugs. I know that’s not something you want to do, especially with your relationship with alcohol.”

Alex had relaxed just a little bit at that pronouncement. Drugs weren’t bad, but she took enough already, what with the birth control, the regen pills, and the alcohol she drank on a regular basis. That's not mentioning the painkillers they gave her whenever she got injured, and the energy drinks she drank to stay up and work, and the sleep aids she took when her brain was too wired to rest, and the Dayquil she took to power through when she got sick. So, she'd stuck the paper in her pocket, given Kara a quick hug goodbye, and headed to work.

 

Once at work, instead of worrying about the evening appointment, Alex poured all of her thought processes into her assigned tasks, which mostly consisted of working with Tony to decipher Howard Stark’s notes. At least, the ones that hadn’t been stolen. Vasquez was working with Nat on sweet-talking SHIELD into giving them access to their records, while Claudia (Agent Donovan, but no-one called her that) tag teamed with Jarvis on gaining access to the old records anyway. Agents Bering and Wells were doing good old-fashioned police work around the crime scenes, they being the most unrecognizable of the group. The rest of the Avengers were busy doing their own things, though they would answer any questions they could. As they put it, “we’re better at hitting things than investigating things”.

It reminded Alex of Kara.

Most of the notes they’d recovered from the various crime scenes were Howard complaining about SHIELD regulations, cursing that he couldn’t to find Very Important Things he needed for his projects, or inappropriate ideas for the bedroom. Or the car. Or his desk. Or  _ literally _ anywhere.

Alex couldn’t wait until they got a look at the copies of the stuff that had been stolen. It had to be better than the stuff that was left behind. So far, all Alex could determine was that Howard was trying to replicate the serum Dr. Erskine had used on Steve Rogers in between making various spy toys, most of which were both implausible and impractical. There was really a lot of information on that, but anytime Howard started writing about the serum, the page cut off.

Alex stopped short. “The serum. They want the serum.”

She shoved the papers to the side and dove for the phone. “Vasquez, please tell me you’ve got copies of the stolen stuff.”

“Not yet, ma’am, they’re still working on it.”

“Damn. Let me know the minute you’ve got them, I think I know what they’re going after.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Alex tapped her fingers across the table, shuffling through the papers. She slid out the page on Howard’s only-blew-up-my-car-once-trunk-rocket to look at later and collected the cut off notes on the serum. She stacked them neatly, then dropped them all again when another thought hit her. She dove across the table as she reached for the phone again, dialing their records office.

“Get me a list of all intentional incidents Supergirl has been involved in over the past six months.”

“Intentional ma’am?” The poor records clerk stammered.

Alex rolled her eyes. “Yes, intentional! Leave out car accidents, natural disasters, accidental fires. I want everything that was premeditated! Bring me a summary list and then start drawing reports.”

She slammed down the phone and stared at her desk for a minute before darting to the door.

Alex stuck her head out into the hallway and yelled at a passing agent. “You! Go find Director Lane or Director Henshaw and get them here!”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” The agent saluted and sprinted off.

Alex cleared the section of her office behind the video camera on her computer and dialed up Tony. The video came up and showed an angled shot of his lab, mostly the ceiling.

“Tony!” Alex snapped.

His head came into frame and he slapped the side of something, jerking the camera back into a more reasonable view. “What?”

“I think I know what this guy is doing. You got anyone else there with you?”

Tony’s eyes widened. “Jarvis, patch in everyone else.”

“Of course.” came the smooth answer.

Alex’s office door opened and Alex waved Lucy over. “Okay, so I was going through the notes and it looks like they’ve stolen everything that has to do with Captain America and the serum. I’m waiting on verification from SHIELD.” Alex glared generally in that direction.

Vasquez darted through the door at that moment and handed Alex a fat stack of reports. “That’s confirmed, ma’am. Everything in there is about Captain America. Even some of Stark’s journal entries about the man. And some of Director Peggy Carter’s notes.”

Alex flipped through the pages and hissed. “Well, whoever it is, they’ve got an obsession with Captain America. And, based on the recent attacks here, they also have an annoying fascination with Kara.”

“Why do you think they’re focusing on us?” Steve asked, his picture appearing on Alex’s screen.

“You’re 95 and look 20. Do you know how many people would give anything for that? And Kara? She’ll live as long as there's a yellow sun in the sky. If you’re looking for the fountain of youth, there are far worse places to start.”

Lucy whistled lowly. “What’s your play?”

Alex shrugged. “Keep going through what we know. Look back and see if we can figure out when he started. It’s still grunt investigative work for now unless anyone else has any ideas?”

They talked a while longer about the implications of the guy looking for the serum. Steve volunteered to give them everything he could remember about the original process. Alex made some very insightful comments about how exactly he might be trying to replicate the serum. Nat gave her a knowing look at that, which Alex ignored. Agent Bering suggested more traditional ways to track him (the Avengers and the DEO tended to think in terms of superpowers and neglect detective work, so it was very helpful). Agent Wells offered to help with the scientific analysis once they’d finished their canvassing, citing a few projects she'd done at the Warehouse that were similar in nature. It wasn’t long before everybody set off to do their part and Alex was reviewing the list of intentional incidents.

 

Alex managed to hold off her panic until her alarm went off, reminding her to leave work so she wouldn’t miss her appointment. She stared at the small slip of paper covered in Kara’s handwriting for at least three minutes.

Finally, she packed her bag and used every bit of stealth she had to avoid everybody on her way out. She drove to the address, carefully locked her bike, and strode into the building like Maxwell Lord was in a lab inside doing something stupid.

Her confidence left her when she stepped through the suite doors and the secretary looked up expectantly.

“A-Alex Danvers for Dr. Halling.” Alex managed to stammer out.

“Ah yes.” The secretary smiled and passed a clipboard over the counter. “If you could have a seat and fill this out, we can get you all set up. Will you be paying with insurance or out of pocket?”

“Um. Insurance.” Alex said.

“Which company?”

“DOC,” Alex replied. The DEO had its own health insurance company, mainly because other insurances didn’t have an option for “stabbed by an alien stinger”.

The secretary’s smile goes wider. “Great! They’re such a good company to work with. You don’t even have a copay.”

“Uh, good,” Alex said as she printed her name and contact information in block letters. This all felt surprisingly normal.

 

She filled out the paperwork (the first part of which looked an awful lot like the stuff she had to fill out last time she went to a normal doctor, and the second part was a questionnaire that covered a very random and large range of topics) and flipped through the collection of magazines on the end table while nervously bouncing her leg.

It didn’t take too long before an inner office door opened and a smiling woman with dark curly hair stuck her head out. “Alexandra Danvers?”

“Alex.” Alex immediately corrected as she followed the woman into a gently lit room, furnished with comfortable couches, a desk, and a coffee table.

The woman smiled again. “I’m Dr. Halling, but please call me Leena.”

Alex nodded, distractedly. “Anything I say here is completely confidential, correct?”

She carefully scanned the room with her phone (so she’d augmented it with alien tech, sue her) checking for potential problems. No cameras or other recording equipment within 50 feet, no laser microphones against the windows, the only warm bodies in the area were her, the psychologist, and the secretary outside. The computer was hooked up to the internet, but it was currently off. Alex set a sensor to notify her if it turned on.

“Correct,” Leena answered, seemingly unperturbed by either Alex’s abrupt question or phone fiddling.

“Do you take notes?” Alex continued.

“Yes.”

“Are they secure?”

“I lock them in my safe after every session. The passcode is both biometric and numeric and the code changes regularly.”

“Okay.” Alex gave the room another once over and carefully sat in the most defensible position.

The psychologist picked up her notepad and sat down in an armchair across from Alex.

Alex twitched.

“Would you rather I sit somewhere else?” Leena asked. “I want you to be completely comfortable here.”

Alex stood up. “Get up for a minute?”

The psychologist obliged, and Alex shifted the armchair three feet to the left and rotated it 30 degrees. Glancing at the psychologist, Alex rubbed her hands on her jeans. “Now you’re out of line-of-sight from both windows and the door. And, if anyone comes in, I can cover you more easily. Unless they come through the wall.”

Leena sat down again. “Do people attack you regularly?”

Alex settled in her corner of the couch. “Yeah. Didn’t you read my paperwork stuff?” The questionnaire had been quite comprehensive.

“I prefer to go into the first session with a clean slate.”

“Oh.” Alex nodded.

The psychologist waited, but Alex didn’t explain. Making a short note on her pad, she looked over at Alex. “To start off, why are you here?”

Alex frowned. Her first instinct was to lie, but Kara had made her promise to be completely honest because ‘if you aren’t, it doesn’t work and all you’re doing is wasting your time and the doctor’s time and putting yourself through a whole lot of hurt for no good.’

Alex eventually answered. “Because Kara asked me to.”

“No other reason?” The doctor kept scribbling on her pad.

Alex shrugged. “There doesn’t need to be. I’ll do anything for her.”

“And do you know why she asked you to come here?”

Alex took a deep breath and clenched her fists. Honesty was hard. “Because I failed.”

The psychologist set a Rubix cube, some silly putty, and a grip strengthener in front of Alex. “Is that what she said?”

Alex absently picked up the Rubix cube. “No. She said I had a problem and she didn’t know how to fix it but knew someone who did. But the problem is that I failed.”

“What did you fail in?”

Alex set down the finished Rubix cube and picked up the silly putty. She kneaded it for half a moment while she thought. “Everything? There are all these things I’m supposed to be, and I can’t be any of them. I’ve tried and I’ve tried.” She rolled the silly putty into a ball and frowned at it, making a mental note to research silly putty and figure out how exactly its properties worked and any potential applications they had.

“What do you think you’re supposed to be?” They psychologist watched as Alex set down the silly putty, picked up the grip strengthener, and twisted its dial to the highest resistance.

Alex ticked off each item with a squeeze to the strengthener. It didn’t appear to be causing her any difficulty.

“A perfect agent, a perfect daughter, a perfect scientist. I’m supposed to protect Kara and defend the earth and be a scientist like my parents and take someone nice home to meet my mother and be responsible and not get angry or out of control. I’m supposed to play nice with idiots and not get caught doing anything illegal . . .” There was a snap and the spring flew out of the grip strengthener. Alex spat out a quiet curse and dug under the couch for the spring. When she emerged from the floor, Leena had placed a small toolkit, a knife sharpening kit, and a large knife on the table.

Alex glanced at Leena, but the doctor was as calm as ever. “Who’s Kara?” she asked.

“My sister. Well, my foster sister. She came to live with us when she was about 13.”

“And you’re close?”

“Yeah.” Alex thought of Kara, her face unconsciously softening. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Leena nodded. “Tell me about her.”

Alex began to talk about Kara, Leena only asking questions occasionally. Throughout the rest of the session, Alex took apart and fixed the grip strengthener three times (increasing its effectiveness by 40%), sharpened the knife so well it would cut a hair landing on it, and molded the silly putty into a new design for a grip on her big gun. Without Alex really realizing it, Leena had shifted them from talking about Kara to talking about all those things Alex had tried to hide deep inside of her and ignore.

Leena gave an encouraging smile after Alex finally stopped talking. “I want you to do something for me this week.”

“What?” Alex asked. She was feeling drained and didn’t think she could even function enough to order takeout.

“I want you to gather evidence. You walked into this office with a hypothesis. I want you to collect as much evidence as you can, both in favor and against your hypothesis of failure. Then, come back and report to me next week.”

“Oh.” Alex blinked. She could do that. She could gather evidence and write reports in her sleep. She actually had, at one point during the final year of her Ph.D. “Okay. I’ll do that.”

“Great. I’ll see you next week.”

Alex nodded and wiped her hands on her jeans as she stood up. “Yeah. Next week.”

Leena gave her a once over and a kind smile. “Don’t worry. You were wonderful today. Your aura is much less strained now.”

“Uh, thanks,” Alex said, and quickly made her escape, barely remembering to stop by the desk outside to schedule her next appointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t planning on having Alex go talk to a therapist, but MENTAL HEALTH IS IMPORTANT, PEOPLE! Also, the amount of stuff she and Kara (and everyone else in the whole show) go through, they need therapy. There’s bound to be at least PTSD, not to mention abandonment issues, self-worth issues, Kara being too eager to please at the expense of her own health and sanity . . . I could go on, really.


	12. Stunned Pause

Alex groaned as she grabbed a beer out of the fridge. She was tired and exhausted and confused and emotionally drained and didn’t know what to do with herself. Her first therapy session had left her quite discombobulated. She just wanted to relax and do nothing and turn her brain off.

She considered the fridge, grabbed a second beer and the box of leftover takeout from . . . whenever it was . . . and headed up the stairs to the roof. That was her favorite thing about this apartment, the direct access to the roof. She'd had to pull a few strings and gave her realtor hell when she was on the market, but it was worth it. Months of researching and a very long and specific list of requirements later and she’d bought the perfect apartment building. She’d celebrated closing the deal by spending a weekend replacing all the windows in her apartment with double-paned bulletproof glass.

Distracting herself with thoughts of her next project to reinforce her apartment (a woman’s home is her castle and should be properly defensible), she was all the way onto the roof before she noticed some guy sprawled in Kara’s chair! Silently placing her food and drink on the ground, Alex pulled out her gun and her cell phone. A quick scan with her phone informed her that guy was completely human and had no appreciable tech on him, just a slightly used iphone on the table next to him. She decided against calling in the DEO and considered calling the nearest police station. But then that would get back to Sawyer, and Alex really didn’t want that. Alex may have been lowkey avoiding Maggie since the phonecall-that-must-not-be-talked-about and the middle-of-the-night-pizza-that-also-must-not-be-talked-about.

Pulling up her security app, she shrugged and decided to do this the easy way. Alex settled her phone in her breast pocket, making sure the camera faced outwards. She slunk up behind the man, holding her gun at the ready. “How the hell did you get up here?”

The guy squealed and jumped a good six inches into the air and out of the chair. “Dude!” He flipped up his sunglasses to look at her. “Give a guy some warning! And what’s with the gun?”

Alex shifted her stance slightly. “How. Did you. Get. Up. Here.”

“I forced the door, what’s it to you? The roof is supposed to be accessible to tenants anyway.”

Alex sighed. “The landlord is only required to make 30% of the roof accessible to tenants for recreation. That’s the part over there.” She gestured with her free hand to the wall behind the man. “This portion is part of the apartment directly beneath us. Which means you are guilty of breaking and entering and trespassing.”

“What?”

“You are trespassing. If you remove yourself from my premises immediately, I will not inform the authorities or resort to force.” She gestured not so subtly with her gun.

The guy just stared.

Alex sighed again, holstered her weapon and bodily picked him up before walking over to the outside door. He squawked and flailed, but she had fought aliens twice her size and he didn’t work out nearly as much as he clearly hoped he looked like he did. Settling him outside the door, she shut it firmly, glared when it was crooked in the frame, collected his towel and phone and ridiculous novel and threw them out after him, stopped recording on her phone, disinfected the whole area, and finally sat down to dinner.

She guessed her next home improvement project would be increasing the security and maybe adding a couple privacy screens. She didn’t want anyone showing up while Kara did her usual weekly float and sunbathe.

 

She’d made it through a bottle of beer and most of the takeout before she got a call from the doorman downstairs.

“Yeah?”

“Ms. Danvers, there are two police officers here to speak to you. Shall I send them up?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah, send them up.”

She picked up her food and headed down into the kitchen, dumping the empty bottle in the recycling as she went. The full beer went in the fridge and her takeout on the kitchen bar. Her holster came off her belt and into the safe in the living room. She reached the front door just as there were three short raps on it. Grabbing her gun, she peered through the peephole to see two uniformed officers waiting. She stuck her gun in the safe, swung it shut, and opened the door. She very pointedly leaned against the doorjamb to prevent them from seeing in. “How can I help you, officers?”

“We have a report you assaulted a man.”

“Are you arresting me?” Alex asked. She so did not want to deal with this.

“We’d like to hear your side of the story first.”

“He was trespassing, I asked him to leave, he didn’t, I forcibly removed him.”

“Are there any witnesses? Security cameras?”

Alex stared them down. “I told you my side of the story. Either arrest me, or leave, but make up your mind fast.”

“We’re just trying to get all the information, ma’am.”

Before Alex could say something horribly rude and definitely get herself arrested, Kara cleared her throat behind the officers. They all turned towards her.

Kara smiled and adjusted her glasses, nodding politely at the officers before looking at Alex. “I brought ice cream, which I will give you, if you give me your phone and let me deal with this.”

Alex eyed the bag Kara was carrying. “What kind?”

“Mint Moose Tracks and Chocolate Cookie Crumble.”

Alex blinked, then fished her phone out of her pocket, passing it to Kara and grabbing the bag of ice cream. She walked back inside and sat down at the kitchen table.

Kara smiled politely at the officers. “Do come in.”

They followed Kara into the apartment and sat down on the couch opposite her. They looked over at Alex who was scarfing the rest of the takeout before focusing back on Kara.

“Who are you, ma’am?” The first one asked, pulling out his notebook.

“Oh, I’m Kara Danvers!” Kara said, smiling. “You’re here about an incident on the roof?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I know Alex, and I do, she recorded the whole thing.” Kara typed in Alex’s ridiculously long phone password, and pulled up the app named “Big Brother”.

She smiled at the latest recording on the phone. “Here you are, officers.” Kara passed the phone over and the officers watched in fascination as Alex took care of the fellow on the roof.

“I can get you that footage, as well as footage from our security cameras on the roof, if that would be helpful.” Kara offered.

“But the roof is a public space.” the second officer said, frowning. “She didn’t have the right to throw him out.”

Kara shook her head. “Not that part of the roof. That part belongs to this apartment, as it states in the tenant agreements.”

“Do you have a copy of the tenant agreement?”

Kara scrunched her nose. “No, why would we? Alex owns the building. You could ask the other guy, though.”

The stunned pause was broken by an indecent moan. The officers jerked and stared at Alex as she dug into her ice cream and moaned again.

“What?” she asked, noticing their stares.

“Do you own this apartment building, ma’am?” one of the officers stammered.

“Yes. Talk to the property manager if you want the paperwork.”

“Ms. Danvers . . .” the other officer started.

“It’s actually Dr. Danvers.” Kara interrupted. “She has a Ph.D. And an MD.”

“Agent works too,” Alex muttered.

“Oh yes, or Agent Danvers.” Kara agreed. “That’s a little less confusing, sometimes.”

The officers looked at Kara with puzzled expressions. “She works for the FBI,” Kara explained kindly. She walked over and grabbed Alex’s badge off the table, showing it to the two police officers.

After a careful examination of the badge, the senior officer stood up. “We’ll talk to the property manager and send a tech over to get the footage. Thank you for your time.”

“Goodbye, officers.” Kara smiled, and gently ushered them out the door.

As soon as the door closed, Kara lost most of her confidence. She turned towards Alex, fiddling with the bottom of her sweater. “I thought you would want some alone time, so I just came over to drop off the ice cream. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alex waved Kara over and shoved a spoon at her. “Thank you for the ice cream.”

Kara smiled. “You’re welcome. It always helps me after my sessions.”

“Yeah.” Alex took another large bite of chocolately heaven.

“Um.” Kara tweaked her glasses further up her nose. “Thank you. For going. I’m really super proud of you for asking for help.”

Alex reached over without looking and tugged Kara into a half hug. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“That’s fine,” Kara said, kissing the top of Alex’s head. “No thinking. Just hugging. And then more ice cream and then cuddling and then sleeping and you’ll feel better in the morning.”


	13. No, I Did Not Steal This Tech

After a massive cuddle session, Kara asked if Alex wanted her to stay the night or leave, absolutely no judgment in her eyes at whichever option Alex chose. Alex did sleep better with Kara around, but needed time to get back on her feet mentally without using Kara as a crutch, so she said leave.

She fell asleep soon after Kara had flown home. As expected, she slept fitfully, but had to concede that Kara was right, she did feel better in the morning. At the very least, she wasn’t completely drained.

Alex woke up pretty early (see: slept fitfully), so she took the time to go on a long run. She felt her mind calm with each step she took. It was almost as good as fighting. The strain of her muscles as she hit mile 10 felt real, like this was something she could understand. She pushed herself a few miles further and made it back to her apartment just as her phone dinged with her morning alarm. She snorted as she shut it off. One of her neighbors was entering the elevator as she walked out. She gave him a reasonably polite nod, and, remembering what Maggie had said, a brief “morning”. He looked startled, but responded, “Good morning.”

Alex walked through her front door to be greeted with the heavenly smell of bacon and fresh bread. A neat breakfast was plated on the kitchen bar, complete with a steaming cup of coffee and a flower in a cup of water. A note was propped up against the glass. Alex bent down to read Kara’s loopy handwriting.  _ Have a great day at work today! Love you! _ Alex cracked a smile and settled on the stool, digging into the still warm food. She’d deny it completely, but she loved it when Kara was sneaky and considerate like that, even if it meant Kara was still trying to make her feel better after the day before.

By the time she got to work, she had rebuilt her emotional walls and filled the mantle of agent/leader/scientist with a stiff spine and proud head. She swung by her office to pick up the reports on all of Kara’s fights from the past six months and then headed to her lab. She really wanted to buckle down on her personal project, and some of the conversation yesterday about the super-serum had given her a few things she wanted to try. She spent the morning setting up tests on different concoctions and reading the fight reports while the tests ran.

One o’clock rolled around, along with a buzz on her phone. Alex absently picked it up and tried to answer it. “Danvers.”

It kept buzzing.

Alex pulled it back from her ear and looked at it. Instead of a phone call, it was actually an alarm that had her phone vibrating in her hand.

Alex tapped the alarm and read the notes attached to it.  _ “Lunch in the break room for at least 30 minutes. I put food in the fridge there for you.” _

Alex sighed but got up. Sometimes she really regretted letting Kara have her phone password. It wasn’t like Kara couldn’t hack it anyway, but she wouldn’t if Alex asked her not to. To be fair, it had come in handy the night before. Alex shook her head, made sure she could leave her experiments, and walked to the break room.

She dug through the fridge and found the box with her name written on it in Kara’s handwriting (complete with heart). She glanced around the room and carefully settled down next to Vasquez, opening her box. “Hey.”

Vasquez glanced over. “Hey.”

They ate in silence for a moment before Vasquez spoke again. “That was brilliant yesterday.”

“What?” Alex mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.

“Your comments about this guy we’ve been chasing down. They made a lot of sense. It’s going to be slow, I think, but we’re going to catch him. We know what he’s after now.”

Vasquez nodded firmly and took a large bite of her pasta.

Alex finished chewing her sandwich. “Do you have any hobbies, Vasquez?”

Vasquez paused to think briefly. “Sports. I really like sports.”

“Playing or watching?”

“Both, though I really only play soccer.”

“So, you watch football?”

“Sure. And basketball and soccer and baseball occasionally, though that’s best in person. Hockey, and rugby too. And really anything else.” Vasquez cracked a smile. “Bull riding is fun to watch every now and then. You watch football?”

Alex hid her face by taking a long drink. “Used to. Haven’t much lately.”

Vasquez nodded. “I throw a pretty wicked Superbowl party, and usually have people over for the games leading up to it. You should come.”

Alex gauged the expression of Vasquez’s face. It seemed sincere. Alex hadn’t really watched much football since high school. She used to watch it with her dad, but then Kara came and he died. Kara and Alex had gone to a few high school games together, as part of teaching Kara about humans, but they usually ended with Kara overwhelmed from the noise and Alex embarrassed about how weird they were acting in front of her friends. Then there was no time in college and then the DEO and stuff just sort of got in her way.

Alex realized Vasquez was still waiting for an answer. “Uh, yeah. Maybe I will.”

Vasquez stood up and packed away her container. “Cool. It’d be fun to have you. See you tonight.”

“See you,” Alex said, before pausing. Tonight? Oh right, Kara had scheduled a night out with the gang (or Supersquad as she insisted on calling it) a few weeks ago. It was at some alien bar Maggie had mentioned and Kara had jumped on. Alex was sure Kara had picked the place purely because she’d seen their menu.

 

It was only three in the afternoon when Alex got restless. She’d made a couple breakthroughs, and, as exciting as that was, her back was protesting the hunching over a microscope or computer, and she didn’t have a clear idea of what to do next. So, Alex shut down her experiments, neatly stacked her reports into two piles (‘probably our perp’ and ‘probably not’) and headed to the locker room. A swift change into her workout clothes later and she was headed to the training rooms.

Alex texted Kara to see if she wanted to come spar for a bit, but received a selfie of Kara hiding under a desk while Cat chewed out what appeared to half the company in her office. The picture was probably staged and frankly ridiculous, but it had Kara’s intended effect of making Alex laugh. In fact, Alex laughed loudly enough to startle several agents nearby (one of whom crossed himself at the sight of Agent Danvers laughing).

Whistling a little, Alex trundled to the furthest training room to see what the rookies were up to. As soon as she walked in Agent Spencer nodded respectfully to her and returned to haranguing the new rookies through a set of burpees. When they were done, he shouted at them to take five and get some water, and came over. “What can I do for you, Agent Danvers?”

“Need a sparring partner?”

“No, but I could use someone for some demonstrations.”

Alex nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good. Boxing today. Suit up.”

Alex made her way to the boxing ring on the far side of the room and carefully began taping her hands. In a few moments, the rookies wandered over to her side of the gym and she was joined in the ring by Agent Spencer. They demonstrated a few moves, then divided the rookies up into pairs to start practicing. Alex and Agent Spencer spent the rest of the afternoon showing the rookies the basics and ended with a knock-down drag-out fight between the two of them to show the rookies what they would be expected to do at the end of training. Alex even managed to get the upper hand on Agent Spencer twice during the fight, for which he gave her a grunt of approval and a “You’ve been training against stronger opponents.”

“What makes you say that?”

He grunted again. “You used some very distinctive moves.”

Alex shrugged. “Even with the dampeners on, Supergirl is still stronger than any human.”

A few of the rookies looked at her in shock and Alex mentally rolled her eyes. They knew the DEO worked with Supergirl, surely they expected to hear about her and see her occasionally?

Agent Spencer snorted. “Is she getting any better?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Director Henshaw puts her through the paces sometimes, but she could benefit from your tutoring for sure.” She eyed Agent Spencer slyly as she finished her sentence.

Agent Spencer twitched his mouth into a slight grin before straightening his facial expression and muttering. “Suck-up. Go take a shower and go home already.”

 

Before going home, Alex swung by her office and picked up the set of blueprints she’d set aside the day before. Walking quickly, she made her way to the mechanic’s garage. Stepping inside one of the bays, she leaned against a door jam, smiling at the sight of two feet sticking out from under a car. The feet were swaying and tapping along to the music blasting through the room. Alex correctly identified the feet as belonging to Raven, one of the mechanics at the garage. Raven had been offered the head position, but said she’d rather design new toys and fix the fleet than have to do anything managerial, so the DEO gave her a garage and basically left her to her genius. This had directly resulted in Raven rebuilding Alex’s suit and helping Alex fix Kara’s spaceship. The two of them had bonded over a mutual geek out about alien tech.

Alex rapped on the door jam, loud as she could, and the feet shot out from under the car, followed by legs, a torso, and a smile that grew even wider when she saw Alex.

“Alex, Alex, Alex! How is my main girl?”

Alex laughed. “Main girl? Don’t let Abby hear you. I don’t want her scalpel slipping next time she’s working on me.”

Raven sent Alex a cocky grin and nodded to the blueprints in Alex’s hand. “I’m the one who should be worried! Your wife might not like you bringing me presents and she’s the one with laser vision!”

“Who says it’s for you?” Alex retorted.

Raven snorted as she hauled herself to a standing position. “Trying to make me jealous won’t work, you know.”

Alex rolled her eyes and passed Raven the pages of notes Howard had written. “What do you think?”

Raven looked down at the paper and her eyes widened. “Alex, babe, honey, love of my life! You brought me original Howard Stark plans?”

Alex leaned back against a car. “I thought you might like that.”

“Like it?” Raven exclaimed. “You’re never paying for car work again!”

Alex cocked her head. “Speaking of . . .” She pointed at the blueprints “. . . can you put that on my bike?”

Raven scoffed. “Do you even have to ask?” She ran her fingers over the page reverently and then groped behind her for a pencil and notepad. “If I just tweak the exhaust line . . .” she muttered, jotting down notes furiously.

Alex laughed. “Let me know how it goes.”

Raven looked up. “You are my favorite. So good to me.” She hugged the papers to her chest and beamed at Alex. “I have many things I could do with this.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Some modifications for your suit, perhaps?”

Alex raised her eyebrows. “Well, I won’t say no if you’re offering . . .”

Raven limped over to her desk. “Let’s talk. Come to my office.”

Alex nodded and joined Raven at the dinged up wooden desk Raven had personally installed at the garage.

“So,” Raven said. “I have your suit specs here, as well as a list of potential improvements. And, looking at these beautiful blueprints in my hands, I’m guessing you have access to Stark tech?”

Alex eyed Raven. “Maybe . . . what are you thinking?”

“Well, I don’t think you want a full Iron Man suit: it’s too big, too bulky, too ostentatious.”

“You’ve got that right!” Alex snorted.

“But, there are a few things his suit can do that I think would be, shall we say, advantageous to your style of chaos.” Raven’s grin was wickedly gleeful.

Alex slowly grinned in response. “I like your way of thinking.”

Raven spread out yet another set of blueprints. “You have time tonight?”

Alex thought. The only thing she had planned was that meetup for drinks at that bar. Alex sure could use a drink, but Kara would still probably be super conscientious about the whole therapy thing, trying to act normal, and to not tell the rest of the group, and to be gentle and understanding. It was nice, knowing Kara was trying to make Alex feel good about what was honestly the third most emotional time in her life (first being admitting she killed Astra and second being almost losing Kara to the Black Mercy), but Alex wanted something desperately normal without people trying too hard. An evening of big guns and explosions and shop talk with the resident mechanical genius sounded perfect.

“I’ve got time,” Alex replied. “You’re not doing anything tonight?”

Raven lifted a shoulder. “Abby’s working late. Something about new regen drugs. You tried them out yet?”

“No, not yet,” Alex replied, as she dragged a stool over with her foot. “Did they get rid of any of the side effects?”

“I don’t know about that, but Abby said they should work better on nerve damage.”

“Oh, thank Rao,” Alex said. “I keep getting this twitch in my leg and I’m pretty sure it’s from when I slashed open my thigh.”

“A twitch in your leg?” Raven asked, barely able to keep herself from laughing.

Alex reached over and punched Raven’s arm. “Feel free to shut up anytime.”

“Awww, but you love me!” Raven batted her eyes.

Alex smiled, relaxing into the familiar banter. “With all of my platonic heart. Now, which parts of the Iron Man suit do you want to look at?” She flipped open her tablet and hovered her fingertips expectantly over the keyboard.

 

Raven and Alex worked easily together, bouncing more and more ridiculous ideas around before settling on upgrades that only slightly stretched the laws of physics. Every so often, Alex would get a text from the group at the bar.

Kara:  _ il ove uuuusssoooooo muxh!!!!!!! _

Alex:  _ I love you too. _

 

Winn:  _ Kara is super drunk. I didn’t know she could get drunk! _

Alex:  _ Barry claims he got her drunk on the other earth, but couldn’t provide any evidence. _

 

Lucy:  _ You’re going to regret missing this. What are you doing anyway? _

Alex didn’t answer that one. Lucy didn’t need to know she was utilizing (stealing) SHIELD and Stark tech or that she was planning a few experiments not sanctioned by the DEO.

 

Lucy:  _ She claims this is a Kryptonian drinking song about an absent love. I didn’t know any drinking songs when I was 13. _

Alex:  _ Well . . . how much Kryptonese do you know? _

Lucy:  _ None. >:( _

 

Winn:  _ She’s started talking about Krypton. Do you think she’s a sad drunk? _

Alex: _ I don’t know. Barry didn’t tell me much. _

 

Kara:  _ ii musssu. :( _

Alex:  _ I’m coming. _

 

At the last text, Alex stood up. “I need to take care of something. We’ll talk later, though, because this stuff is amazing.”

Raven waved Alex off. “You know where I am. Go do your thing.”

Alex smiled in thanks and hurried out the door.


	14. Meet Me at the Bar

Alex made it to the bar in seven minutes flat but paused once she entered. She cased the place quickly. There was a bar to the right, booths around the walls, tables in the middle, a few pool tables and some dart boards. In the corner next to the door, two aliens were making out. At least, that’s what it looked like. Alex supposed it could have been a form of hand-to-hand combat, but from the looks of the other patrons, it was probably just excessive PDA. J’onn was at the bar, chatting with the bartender. She gave him a nod of greeting. She also gave a short nod to the two UNIT agents sharing a drink at a table in the middle of the room. They worked with those two regularly, and they were nicknamed M’n’M when no superiors were around. Alex finally focused on the group across the room that included Kara.

Kara’s hair was braided into two pigtails that had probably been neat at the beginning of the night, but now bits of hair had come out and floated around her face. She was pretty obviously drunk and laughing at something (well, half laughing half snorting), flailing her arms around. Her collar was cockeyed and her shirt half untucked.

She was gorgeous.

Alex shook her head. Kara didn’t look out of sorts, but now that Alex was here, she might as well join them. She deserved a drink or four after all the work she’d been putting in. Alex slid her phone back into her pocket and tugged at her jacket, making sure her gun was hidden.

She began weaving her way through the tables and it wasn’t long before Kara looked up and saw her.

“Alex!” Kara beamed, making Alex feel that no one else even existed.

Kara sloppily pushed herself up until she was standing by the booth. She wobbled a bit, but caught her balance and headed determinedly towards Alex. Alex sped up, hoping to reach Kara before she ran into something or someone and did irreparable damage. Kara flung her arms around Alex’s waist and buried her face in Alex’s neck. “You smell good.”

Alex laughed softly and rubbed Kara’s back. “I think you’re drunk.”

“Is this what drunk is? I feel all floaty but I’m not actually floating. Is that why you drink so much? Because I stopped taking you flying? I promise I’ll take you flying every day so you don’t have to.”

Alex winced imperceptibly and did her best to avoid the question. “Drinking does different things to different people.”

“Mmm.” Kara shifted her head and Alex could feel the slightest press of lips against her collarbone.

“O-kay.” Alex gently peeled Kara off and steered her back towards the booth, where Lucy was watching them with a raised eyebrow and slight smirk.

“Now what was this I heard about a Kryptonian drinking song?” Alex asked, stealing Winn’s beer and taking a long drink.

Vasquez sniggered. “She claimed it was a song about a warrior lover but refused to translate it for us because, and I quote, ‘You guys are lame and just need to learn Kryptonese. It’s not that hard. I mean, it only took Alex like three months.’ Is that true by the way? Three months to learn an alien language?”

Alex shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t time it.” She took another pull on Winn’s beer.

She had timed it. It took two months, one week, and three days before the Kryptonian AI in her parent’s basement said she had surpassed Clark in fluency. She’d started learning the day after Kara had arrived, out of curiosity more than anything, but stepped up her studies the first night Kara crawled in bed with her because of a nightmare. It’d taken her the rest of the summer (and seriously cut down on her surfing time) to get fluent enough to risk talking to Kara in it, but the look on Kara’s face was worth every hour of missed sleep or surfing. Kara had been so excited she could share her favorite stories and songs and poems with someone who understood. The first thing Kara had shared with her was a lullaby she’d planned on singing to Kal-El.

Vasquez nodded, almost like she didn’t believe Alex. “Well, she got half the bar singing it.”

Alex turned to Kara, who was fumbling for her cardigan. “Was this one of the ones Astra taught you? That she learned on her travels?”

“Uh huh!” Kara grinned, shoving her head through the sweater backwards. “Right after she made me promise never to sing it in front of my parents.”

Alex chuckled. “Of course.” Eyeing Kara’s attempts to put on her cardigan without unbuttoning it, she continued. “Are you wanting to go?”

“Yep.” Kara popped the 'p' so hard she nearly fell over, clutching onto Alex for balance. “Take me home. I wanna sleep on the roof. ”

Alex snorted. She should have expected this. “Oh, you want to go back to my place.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Kara finally got her arm into her sweater. “Home.”

“All right, all right, but we’re not sleeping on the roof.”

Kara produced a pout of truly epic proportions.

Alex quickly turned to the rest of the occupants in the booth. “You guys good to get home safely?”

They all assured her they would be fine, by which time Kara had her other sleeve on.

“See you all around.” Alex nodded goodbye and Kara waved enthusiastically, falling into Alex as she did so. Alex wrapped her arm around Kara’s waist to steady her and Kara draped her arms over Alex’s shoulders. They made it to the door without incident, though Alex raised an eyebrow at the two aliens who had yet to come up for air. Maybe they had gills.

Kara began humming and softly singing as they walked down the street away from the bar. Alex mentally translated the song as Kara sang.

<< _Across the skies she travels,_

_My love, she is far from me,_

_And she is fair, I cannot bear_

_to be without my lovely_

 

_So I drink all the night, draining my cup,_

_Drinking Viru Vegal._

_For she is mine and I’ll make a shrine,_

_Of empty mugs and barrels._

 

_On far-flung worlds she battles,_

_May Rao watch o’er her safety,_

_I’d weep all night, the stars I’d fight,_

_If only she stays happy._

 

_So I drink all the night, draining my cup,_

_Drinking Viru Vegal._

_For she is mine and I’ll make a shrine,_

_Of empty mugs and barrels._ >>

 

Kara leaned even closer to Alex and whispered in her ear. <<For you are mine and I’ll make a shrine of empty mugs and barrels.>>

Alex shook her head, chuckling slightly. “You are so drunk, Kara.”

<<What?>> Kara mumbled.

Alex raised an eyebrow. Kara was drunker than she thought, or more tired, if she was reverting to Kryptonese for conversation.

Alex answered, keeping her voice low. <<I said, you’re so drunk. Now come on, you wanted to go home.>>

Kara nodded into Alex’s neck. <<Home. You’re home.>>

Alex carefully maneuvered Kara to where she’d parked her bike. She eyed Kara carefully. Kara was drifting in and out of sleep, her head resting on Alex’s shoulder. If Alex could wake Kara up, would Kara be able to hang on the whole ride home? Sure, she wouldn’t get hurt if she fell off, but what if someone saw? Or they crashed the bike?

Alex nudged Kara gently. <<Wake up, Kara.>> Kara was about a minute away from floating in her sleep, as she frequently did while cuddled around Alex. Alex had so often woken to Kara’s arms looped around her waist, her head cuddled on Alex’s chest, and the rest of her floating a scant inch above the bed.

<<Five more minutes.>> Kara muttered.

Alex chuckled. <<You just need to get on the bike and hang on. Then you can sleep all you want.>>

Kara grumbled, but disentangled herself enough so Alex could mount the bike, then immediately climbed on behind her, wrapping her arms and legs around Alex’s torso. Alex shifted Kara’s limbs just enough so she could drive, and roared down the street.

When they got to Alex’s apartment, Alex merely rotated Kara around her body so that they were face to face and carried her upstairs. Kara had started floating in her sleep at this point, so it was a lot easier than it looked.

It didn’t take much to get the both of them into pajamas (Kara was surprisingly pliable in her sleep. Or maybe just around Alex; Eliza had complained about trying to get Kara to move after she’d fallen asleep on the couch many times.) Alex slipped into bed next to Kara, who immediately rolled into her. Alex gently kissed Kara’s forehead. “Love you, Kara. Sleep well.”

Alex slept wonderfully that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loosely based Kara’s drinking song on ‘Tom O’Bedlam’, which you can listen to [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sLVaHtZLQo). Also, Viru Vegal is supposed to be a type of alcohol, if you didn’t catch that.  
> As for the people in the bar, you know who you are. :D


	15. One Week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’re speaking Russian, here, when not in English.

Kara stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the fridge, but missed, face planting into it instead. She shuffled backwards, swiping ineffectually for the handle. Alex, who had been watching in amusement from the kitchen bar, got up and opened the fridge for Kara, laughing when she saw the imprint of Kara’s face in the metal. “It looks like those carbonite fridges except in reverse.”

“Nerd,” Kara mumbled, finally managing to grab her water bottle and open it.

“Do you even know what I’m referencing or is that just your fall back response?”

Kara glared at Alex blearily. “I don’t know, I can’t think. Is this what a hangover is?”

Alex chuckled. “Probably. Go sunbathe for a bit and get rid of it.”

Kara groaned and headed up the stairs, pulling off her pajama pants as she did so, leaving her in boy shorts and a tank top.

“No floating!” Alex called after her. “I don’t have the privacy screens up yet!”

Alex finished her toast and cup of coffee, then checked her watch. She needed to get going if she wanted to be early enough to do a little work on her personal project before she could officially clock in.

She scribbled a note to Kara, set a remote alarm to the roof in case Kara lost track of time, and put the breakfast casserole she’d made into the oven to warm for when Kara made it down for breakfast.

 

Twenty minutes later Alex was striding into her lab and getting started. She had barely set up her slides when a voice came from behind her.

“I know what you’re doing.”

Alex had stopped being surprised by Nat’s sudden appearances, even if the last time she’d seen her had been in New York. “Are you going to stop me?”

“No. I’m going to help.” Nat expertly began drawing her own blood.  “You should look at my blood before doing anything else.”

Alex raised an eyebrow, but watched quietly and accepted the vial of blood. She slid a drop onto a slide and stuck it under her microscope, comparing it to the other two slides already there. It was surprisingly similar to Steve’s and close to the drop of her modified blood.

Alex jotted a few notes in her lab book. “When were you born?” she asked.

Nat shrugged. “I can’t remember. Probably sometime in the 1920s.”

Alex paused and looked at Nat. “You know, I didn’t actually expect you to answer that.”

Nat sat on a stool next to Alex. “Someone should know. I’ll send you my medical records. Unless you already have them?” Nat raised an eyebrow in question.

Alex merely answered. “I’d appreciate that.”

Nat chuckled and cocked her head to look at the slides. “Whose blood have you got there?”

“These slides, yours, Steve’s and a modified version of mine. In the lab, everybody’s.”

“What do you mean everybody’s?”

“All the Avengers, Supergirl, the Martian Manhunter, several humans, and a number of other aliens.”

Nat whistled lowly. “How did you manage that?”

“Talked to doctors, mostly. And if it was our lab that was doing the work, just took a little more than needed for the usual tests.”

“And stole the rest?” Nat had a knowing half smile on her face when Alex looked up. Alex just smirked and shrugged and returned to peering through the microscope.

Natasha glanced around the lab. “ All right. Walk me through this. What have you done, and how much is left?”

“Well, I was doing pretty well on my own, and then I realized that SHIELD had files on some similar attempts. I can’t believe it took me that long to realize, but when I found out what our perp was looking for, I realized I could use them too. The files were tricky to get a hold of, and only sort of useful since most of the stuff on the Captain America project was destroyed and they had no gene tracking or anything back then. Banner’s work was thorough, but clearly ineffective, at least for the effect I’m going for. Good to see what went wrong, if nothing else. Honestly, I think I’m close to a solution, but you never really can tell.”

“So, how far is close?”

Alex clicked a few keys and turned a monitor towards Natasha. Natasha scanned the results, went back and read them carefully, then turned to Alex with a stunned look on her face. “Do you even need my help?”

Alex furrowed her brow. “Yeah! I mean, you’re a genius, and you know firsthand how this stuff went down.”

“I’m a genius, yes, but I also had the serum to enhance my brain. You’re doing this without any assistance. No mental enhancement, no research partners, not even a lab tech.”

Alex shrugged, casually, as if this feat of medicine and engineering were no more impressive than successfully grilling a burger.

“Okay.” Nat looked at the results. “I bet we can get this finished in a week, the two of us.”

 

_Day 1:_

“What are you working on?”

Alex jumped. Most aliens she could handle but J’onn was a special case.

“Nothing,” she said, doing her best at keeping her mental block solid. Not that she thought J’onn would invade her privacy like that, but better safe than sorry.

J’onn nodded to the slides. “Whose blood is that?”

“No one’s.”

“Uh huh. And Steve and Natasha are wandering around with bandages on their arms because?”

“Because they dared Tony to shoot Clint’s bow . . . it didn’t go too well.”

“Agent Danvers, I’ll just ask Kara for the truth.”

Luckily, Alex thought, she doesn’t know the truth.

 

_Day 2:_

“That won’t work!” Alex said. “That is literally the first thing everyone tries. It hasn’t worked once!”

“Well, I can name three cases where it did: Me, Steve, and Bucky. You just have to add in something that gives the cells enough energy to make the transition, otherwise they eat themselves up in the process.”

Alex folded her arms and glared at Nat, thinking. “What did they use for your cells?”

Nat shrugged helplessly. “We don’t know. It was a one-time thing, just enough to transform my cells. My body still processes food the same way, and reacts similarly to injury and infection. The transition energy is one of the things that was lost with Steve’s research too. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t ever written down, to be honest.”

Alex tapped her fingers restlessly. “Okay, but we don’t need to copy what they did, we just need to get that energy boost.”

“Yeah.” Nat nodded. “What are you thinking?”

Alex quirked her head. “Kryptonian cells are ridiculously efficient. They can pull energy from just about anywhere.”

Nat smiled as she saw where Alex was going. “If we can copy that . . .”

“If?” Alex grinned. “I’ve been studying these cells since Kara showed up on my lawn.”

 

_Day 3:_

Alex tapped a few buttons on the centrifuge and turned to Nat.<<Why are you helping me?>>

Nat shrugged. <<Why not?>>

<<No seriously.>> Alex leaned against the table. <<You’re helping me go behind the backs of three different organizations in order to do unsanctioned and very risky medical experiments. This is not done on a whim. Not that I’m not grateful, but I would like to know your motives.>>

Nat mirrored Alex’s position, hip against the table, arms folded. <<Would you believe I have general altruistic tendencies?>>

<<No, not general altruistic tendencies. But,>> Alex paused and cocked her head. <<You do look after the people you care about.>>

<<Is it so hard to believe I care about you?>>

Alex snorted. <<First, you know the end goal of this project; I don’t think helping me with it qualifies as looking after me. Second, I’m just part of your team. So, what are your motives?>>

Nat eyed Alex. <<Where to start . . .>> she murmured.  She shook her head and straightened. <<Okay. This is how it is. Listen closely. Everything I say, I say from years of experience.

<<It is not good for Kara to be alone. It is not good for you to be alone. Being isolated is unhealthy; I learned that the hard way. You two, you two are better together. And this project will give you two the chance to be together and keep each other sane and grounded and good.

<<Next. You are not just part of my team. My team is everything to me, and I will do anything for anyone on it. Besides that, I respect you, I like you, I’m trying to be your friend. You defended Wanda! Wanda, who built a life on hate and neglect now knows that there are people who care for her and will help her, whether she needs it or not. And you are one of those people! You throw your life into protecting others. You love as passionately as Kara, though, perhaps, not as broadly.

<<You are smart and kind and strong and good and have done so much. You are wonderful. Why would I not care about you?>>

Alex kept her face expressionless.

<<Do I need to repeat it in English, or do you understand me?>> Nat asked.

Alex turned back to their project. <<I understand.>>

Nat reached over and laid her hand on Alex’s shoulder briefly.

 

_Day 4:_

An alarm went off on her phone and Alex swatted at it before starting in remembrance. She looked at Nat, her eyes wide with panic. <<Oh, uh, I need to go.>>

Nat nodded. <<All right. I’ll finish up here.>>

<<You sure?>>

<<I’m positive. We’re almost done for today anyway.>>

<<Great. Thanks.>> Alex pointed at Nat, nodded, and rushed out the door. She grabbed a DEO sedan (Raven was still working on her bike) and headed to the psychologist’s office. She made it just in time.

 

Dr. Halling was chatting with the secretary when Alex entered the office. “Hello, Alex.”

Alex rubbed her hands on her jeans. “Dr. Halling, uh, Leena.”

Leena smiled and waved Alex into the back room. Alex nodded at the secretary and entered, pulling out her phone and scanning the room again.

Leena settled into her armchair. Alex noticed it was still where Alex had shifted it the week before. Alex finished her scan and sat in her spot on the couch. The table had a larger grip strengthener, a pile of paperclips and rubber bands, and a couple of absolutely filthy handguns with an accompanying cleaning kit.

“Do you have an update on your hypothesis?” Leena asked.

Alex nodded and passed Leena a file, reaching for one of the guns in the same motion.

Leena didn’t seem surprised Alex had written her report up instead of delivering it verbally. Nor was she surprised when the report followed every detail of her discipline in format and style. She read through it while Alex obsessively cleaned the first gun within an inch of its life.

Leena set the report on the end table next to her. “Based on your report, the hypothesis is pretty well disproven.”

“Yeah,” Alex grunted, before setting down the gun. “I still feel like a failure, though. Wasn’t this supposed to make me feel better? Prove me wrong?”

“Yes, partly.” Leena agreed. “It was also a way to start you thinking about how you feel and whether your thoughts are accurate or not.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, halfway through the second gun.

“Let me give you an example instead?” Leena asked.

Alex shrugged. “Sure.”

“Okay. Hypothetical situation. It’s the middle of the night. You’re asleep in bed.”

Alex snorted. That was unrealistic. Leena gave her a look and Alex ducked her head in apology.

Leena continued. “A large thump from the other room wakes you up. Now, it could be an intruder stealing your TV. But it just as easily could be your sister flying through the window and accidentally knocking over a stack of books.”

Alex nodded. “Right.”

“So, how you react depends on what you determine the thump to be. An intruder, you grab your gun and confront them. Your sister, you yell at her to keep it down. Either way, doing the wrong thing would cause problems.”

“Kara would tease me for weeks if I pulled a gun on her, and if I yelled at a thief to keep it down, I’d lose a TV and probably some other stuff, and maybe even get hurt.” Alex didn’t bother saying that it was unlikely a thief could get anywhere near her apartment, with the security. She got Leena’s point.

“So, what I would like to do with you is practice your ability to accurately identify. Instead of identifying threats vs. non-threats, we will be identifying emotional reactions to situations and if they are accurate and useful responses.”

“We’re going to calibrate my brain!” Alex said, enlightened.

Leena smiled. “Precisely.”

 

_Day 5:_

Alex fumbled with her phone when it rang and winced when she saw the time.

“I’m so sorry, Kara, so sorry for missing dinner, I got caught up at the lab.”

. . .

“No, nothing urgent, just one of my long-term projects I’ve finally made some headway on.”

. . .

“I had an energy bar and some coffee, what about you?”

. . .

“You’re still down about 760 calories. Are you at your place or mine?”

. . .

“Okay, well, make sure you get something to eat.”

. . .

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go grab something from the cafeteria right now.”

. . .

“Um, I dunno? I’m really close, I think. Maybe a few more hours?”

. . .

“Well, tomorrow I’ve got a bunch of meetings so I won’t be able to log much lab time.”

. . .

“I’ll catch some sleep in the bunks, okay? I promise.”

. . .

“All right, see you tomorrow.”

. . .

“Love you too.”

 

_Day 6:_

“Updates?” Alex asked, glancing around the room. “Agent Bering?”

Myka sighed and shook her head. “We canvassed fight scenes back two months. Everyone we talked to either couldn’t remember much of anything or thought they knew it all and gave us more inaccurate information than we could deal with. We put up a discreet reward for any recordings of the fights and . . . acquired footage from the news crews. Hopefully we’ll get some angle we haven’t seen before.”

Alex nodded. About what she’d expected. Human witnesses were unreliable, but could also provide just the insight needed. “Agent Wells?”

“I helped Myka with the canvassing and spent some time with the labs going over the evidence. We started looking what was collected from some of the Avenger’s mishaps, but they usually focused on clean-up, not trace evidence preservation, so I’m not hopeful.”

“Is it worth continuing, do you think?” Alex asked.

Agent Wells seemed a little startled at having her opinion asked so openly but gamely answered. “I do. It is likely our perp was watching the fights. He would want as much information on how Steve’s and Kara’s powers worked as part of his research. At least, that is what I would do. And watching them work first hand is very different than watching it on a screen, though I would record as much as I could for later analysis too.”

“Very well, carry on. Agent Donovan?”

No response.

“Claudia!”

“Oh! Sorry, still not used to being called Donovan. That’s my brother, you know? Anyway, I’m working on tracking financials and suppliers. He had to pay these guys somehow. Also, if he’s planning on replicating the serum, he’ll need access to a pretty high tech lab. There are, unfortunately, lots of those in the world, but I’m starting to narrow down options.”

“Great. Vasquez?”

“SHIELD has given in and given me access to all their old files, not just the ones they find pertinent. I’m looking at ex-personnel, primarily. SHIELD did their best to keep Captain America’s origin a secret, at least, the scientific part of it, so this guy had to find out about it somehow. I’m also tracking the typewriter used in his messages to his employees and trawling the ‘Fountain of Youth’ forums.”

Alex blinked. “There are ‘Fountain of Youth’ forums?”

Vasquez grinned. “Oh yeah. You won’t believe some of the concoctions they come up with! I really think we should try some in the lab, just to see what happens.”

The other agents made eager noises and Alex smiled. “Yeah, we could do that. Take a break once in awhile.”

 

_Day 7:_

Alex and Nat stared in fascination as the cells in the dish grew and replicated and repaired themselves. Alex grabbed a portable sunlamp and shone it on the dish. The sample sped up its replication, churning through the nutrients provided.

“Woah.” Alex breathed.

Nat smirked. “Told you we could do it in a week.”

“There is still a long way to go. I want to run tests and make sure it can be replicated and triple my security.”

“Of course.” Nat gestured to the petri dish. “I would suggest testing it on both animals and artificial organs.”

“Naturally. I started growing organs from my cells months ago. They’re as close to me as we can get, but they need a few more weeks to grow. Unfortunately, the animal testing can’t be done here without someone catching on. I’ll arrange another lab space.”

“I have a few contacts if you would like help acquiring equipment?”

“I’ll let you know,” Alex replied.

Nat grinned and held up her hand. Alex quirked an eyebrow, but gave Nat the requested high-five. “We rock.”


	16. Lonely is the Night

A few weeks passed. They were relatively quiet weeks. Supergirl stopped robberies and put out fires and pulled kittens out of trees, but there were no world-ending events or dangerous madmen to deal with.

The DEO slowly but surely dug into their serial perpetrator. They followed countless leads and learned more with each dead-end. The team traveled to New York easily as often as the Avengers traveled to National City. Wanda got dual citizenship, and they all celebrated at the alien bar.

Alex postponed working on her personal project to give her test tissues time to grow. Instead, she focused on increasing the security at her apartment, doing all of it herself, from tearing out walls to installing fiber optic cables and cameras to programming a rudimentary AI to control everything. Kara would occasionally drop by and take advantage of the newly installed privacy screens to sunbathe on the roof, or just for a quiet place to sit in the evening.

 

The night was calm and just warm enough to be comfortable as Kara swooped through the city, doing her rounds. It was a pretty calm night, and Kara was considering heading back to her apartment (not Alex’s, because it was a therapy day and she liked her space after sessions, as much as Kara would love to just wrap Alex up and hold her as tightly as she can), when she saw a boy, maybe 13, sitting on the edge of a building, staring at the ground below.

Kara floated gently towards the ledge. “Mind if I join you?”

The boy shrugged a little. Kara nodded and settled down next to him, shifting her cape out from under her. They both looked at the stars for a while.

“Do you know, I can still see my planet?” Kara said.

“What?” he asked. “I thought it blew up.”

Kara smiled sadly. “It did. But it’s far enough away that it takes the light decades to get here. I can see my planet because the light from the explosion hasn’t gotten here yet.”

“Oh.” he paused. “Does it hurt to think about it?”

“Yes. It still hurts.”

“I hurt.” the boy wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing a scratch on his arm. “I think of everything and it just hurts so much and I just want it to stop hurting.”

Kara wrapped her cape around him. “I know.”

He looked up at her. “Does it ever stop hurting?”

“Yes. Not all the time, but when I help people or when I’m with my friends and I realize how much they care or in those moments right when I wake up.”

Kara paused a little, staring out at Rao. “And it gets easier. I focus on the happy memories and how much I loved my family. And I talk to a therapist.”

“You talk to a therapist.” The disbelief was evident in his words.

“Yeah!” Kara nodded eagerly. “She really helps. Helps me be objective when I need to be and gives me a place I can feel things without having to hide. She showed me how much I need my support group. I can’t do it alone, and I don’t know where I’d be without my family and friends.”

He looked down. “Do your friends know you go to therapy?”

“Some of them.”

“And, and, they’re okay with it?” He twisted his fingers together.

“Yeah. It took a couple of them a while to get used to the idea, but they got over it.”

He leaned into her side and she gave him a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know that I need therapy,” he said.

Kara nodded and squeezed just a little bit tighter.

A call from the apartment downstairs caused him to pull away. “That’s my dad. I should go.”

Kara floated off the ledge. “All right. I’ll see you around.”

He gave her a small smile. The first of the night. “Yeah. See you around.”

 

-

 

Alex’s phone rang very late, that night. She bolted out of bed, already pulling on her tac-pants as she answered.

“Danvers.”

“Alex, Alex, guess what I found!”

Alex looked down at the phone and blinked a couple of times.

“Kara?”

“You’ll never believe what I found!”

Alex rubbed her hand over her eyes. Probably not an emergency; Kara only got this excited about food. She flipped on her bedside lamp and settled back onto the bed.

“What did you find, Kara?”

“There’s this store that sells cookies and ice cream and chocolate milk and they deliver. ALL NIGHT!”

“What?”

“I can order cookies, by the dozen or by the hundred, and they will deliver them to me, even at one in the morning.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. “How many did you get?”

“Just a dozen of each kind. I have to know which ones are best!”

“Of course.”

“And some milk, because you can’t have cookies without milk.”

“It would be a travesty.”

“Exactly!” Kara gushed. It appeared Alex’s sarcasm was lost on her.

Alex frowned. Usually, Kara teased her about her sarcasm, and her gushing seemed a little forced.

“Any particular reason you’re buying cookies in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Alex glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It wasn’t any anniversary that Alex could remember (or had marked on her calendar) so maybe it was just one of Kara’s bad days.

“Do you want company while you clean out their entire stock?”

“I didn’t clean out their entire stock, they would have said something!”

Alex gave a small chuckle. “Nah, they wouldn’t have.”

Kara giggled nervously. “Well, if you want to come over . . .”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

 

-

 

The delivery guy double checked the address on the delivery slip. He usually only had this large of an order for dorm parties (especially this time of night), but the apartment building was quiet and dark. Sighing, he struggled with the stack of boxes and pushed his way into the lobby.

It took some clever balancing, but he managed to hit both the elevator up button and the correct floor button. The doors were almost shut when someone slipped in beside him. He glanced over to see a fierce young woman in a leather coat. She didn’t bother hitting a different floor button, so he asked, "Are you going to the party?"

Alex merely looked him up and down without answering. She allowed him first off the elevator and followed him down the hall, not that she needed to. She could smell the cookies; she knew where he was going.

Kara excitedly opened the door just before the cookies and Alex reached it. "Alex! You have got to try some of these cookies! I even got you skim milk though we’ve talked about how it's not really milk."

Alex lifted one shoulder. "It tastes better."

Kara shuddered at the thought as she handed the confused delivery man a nice tip and took the boxes out of his hands. He tried to peer through the doorway to see who'all would be eating the massive order, but Alex not so subtly hip-checked him to the side.

Kara closed the door behind Alex, the poor delivery guy rubbing his hip and frowning, at least until he looked at the tip money in his hand.

Kara fixed her glasses more firmly on her face. "I think you broke your taste buds with all those experiments you did in high school."

"You mean where you would create horrible combinations of food and make me try them all?”

"Hey! You liked the fried chicken and applesauce."

Alex smiled fondly. "And yet that was not the weirdest thing you came up with."

Alex placed her hands on her hips and looked over the boxes that took up all of the kitchen island and dining table. "How many did you say you ordered?

"A dozen of each type," Kara said, following her nose to taste a chocolate chip. You could tell a lot about a bakery from how they treat the classic cookie.

"And just how many types are there?" Alex asked, opening up a box to find what appeared to be Snickerdoodles.

"Only fourteen," Kara sighed. “Oh! But I got an extra dozen of the chocolate chip, the double chocolate, the double chocolate mint, the oatmeal, the s’mores, and the chocolate peanut butter cup!”

Hazel eyes shot up to meet thrilled blue ones. "You ordered 240 cookies?!"

Kara nodded eagerly, a little chocolate smeared across her mouth from the cookie she had devoured. “Yes! Isn’t this amazing? Any time of night? And the cookies are really good too.”

Alex picked up a Snickerdoodle and bit into it. It was a really good cookie.

Kara passed her a bottle of skim milk and scarfed down another chocolate chip, before moving to the double chocolate chunk.

Alex shucked off her coat and flopped onto the couch with a stack of cookies and her milk. “How was your day?”

“Oh fine, fine.” Kara giggled nervously. “Nothing interesting. How was yours? Anything exciting happen?”

Alex glanced over at Kara, who had a tense smile on her face. “Well, I talked to that guy that runs the same route as I do this morning.”

“Yeah?”

Alex grinned. “Yeah. He was surprisingly chill.”

“Tell me about it.”

Alex leaned back. “Well . . .”

 

_\-  that morning -_

Alex saw the man she’d chatted with before start jogging at the entrance to the park. She picked up her pace and caught up quickly. “Hey.”

He looked over. “Hey.”

“Mind if I come along?”

He had a puzzled look on his face. “I guess not.”

“Great, thanks.”

They ran in silence for about a quarter mile before he turned to her again. “Why do you want to run with me? I see you running here pretty regularly, and you’ve always avoided talking to people.”

Alex snorted. “Honestly? Because my sister has been on my case about working too much and thinks I need to get out more and have a social life. And if I run with you, I can tell her I’ve made a new friend. Besides, you seem kind of cool.”

He nodded. “Okay. Sounds good to me. It’s nice to have someone to run with.”

Alex nodded. “Right.”

They ran a few moments before he spoke up again. “My name’s Jeff, by the way.”

“Alex.”

“What do you do for work, Alex?” Jeff asked as they rounded a corner in the park.

“I’m an FBI agent.” Alex replied. “You?”

Jeff did a double take. “I’m an accountant. You really work for the FBI?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Is that so unbelievable?”

He gave her a once over. “Actually, no.”

Alex preened ever so slightly.

“Well, that explains why you aren’t worried about running by yourself. I bet you get all sorts of hand-to-hand training at the FBI.”

Alex nodded. “Yep, and mention weapons training.”

“But weapons training wouldn’t do you any good while you’re running, unless . . .” Jeff paused. “Are you carrying a gun right now?”

“Yes. Among other weapons.”

He looked her over again. She was wearing tennies, running shorts, and a t-shirt. “Where?”

Alex smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again at the glint in her eye, just daring him to go further in that line of questioning. “You’re seriously intimidating, you know that?”

Alex smiled. “I should hope so. I’ve been practicing.”

“Why would you practice being intimidating? Never mind, don’t answer that.”

Alex raised a shoulder. “It comes in very useful.”

Jeff looked a little pale. “I’m sure it does.”

Alex took pity on Jeff and changed the subject. “Do you have any hobbies, Jeff? Besides running.”

“I collect license plates. Specialty ones with interesting phrases, different states and countries, ones that have gone out of print, so to speak.”

“What sort of interesting phrases?” Alex asked. How interesting could they get with only 7 or 8 letters available?

Jeff chuckled. “A lot of sex jokes and curse words, actually, even though most states try to screen those out.”

“They screen specialty plates?”

“Yeah, I think they might come under the same sort of restrictions as billboards or public TV and radio.”

Alex nodded. “Okay.”

“Right. One of my favorites, not a dick joke, I promise, is a handicapped plate, you know the ones with a wheelchair on it?”

“Sure.”

“This particular plate had ‘PROF X’ as its number.”

Alex laughed. “You are such a geek.”

Jeff shrugged. “You’re the one who got the joke. Pretty sure you’re just as geeky as I am.”

_\- back to the middle of the night -_

 

Kara burst out laughing. “He’s right, you are such a geek!”

Alex raised her nose in false offense. “You take that back. I am a very serious agent of an elite covert agency.”

Kara leaned into Alex’s side. “Still a geek.”

Alex smiled and wrapped her arm around Kara. They sat in silence, pressed together. Most of the cookies had been eaten, and Kara seemed a little less inside her head. A bit happier, perhaps, glad that Alex had taken her advice.

Kara spoke quietly. “I gave a boy a TWLOHA card tonight. Slipped it into his jacket pocket.”

Alex wrapped her other arm around Kara and held her tight. “He going to be okay?”

Kara shrugged. “I hope so. I’ll swing by in a week or so and see.”

Alex pressed her lips against the top of Kara’s head, again and again, trying to say what she meant, but couldn’t verbalize. The cookies made sense now.

Kara spoke up again, even quieter than before. “Will you stay the rest of the night?”

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cookie place is an actual thing. It’s called Insomnia Cookies and delivers until three in the morning. They have like fourteen different kinds of cookies and you can make ice cream sandwiches with them (any cookies any ice cream) and they sell milk and chocolate milk too. Basically, Supergirl’s dream store.


	17. When It Rains, It Pours

Alex should have known the quiet weeks they had had (at least in terms of rampaging aliens/metahumans/robots) wouldn’t last. The next week seemed full of emergencies, each one worse than the last. They had to pull all personnel off non-urgent tasks and reassign them to damage control. Alex hadn’t been near her lab in days and all work had been paused on their serial stalker. To cap it all off, some idiot metahuman decided to wreck havoc not 8 hours after they’d cleaned up the last mess. (A belligerent Fort Rozz escapee determined to destroy everything Kara loved as revenge on her mother. Could they be any more predictable?)

The metahuman walked into a bank, shot electricity into the air and told everyone to get out. The electricity coming out of his fingers had fried half of the bank’s systems, but, luckily, the alarm still went off. Not that they’d needed it, with nearly every patron in the bank calling 911 as they stumbled out the doors. And, naturally, the police department had called the DEO as soon as they heard “hands like Emperor Palpatine”.

Within minutes, the NCPD, the DEO, and the NCFD were surrounding the building. SWAT was on its way, and Alex had texted Kara.

It didn’t take long before Supergirl landed lightly next to Alex. “What can I do?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Alex replied. “He hasn’t made any demands. They’ve got the NCPD negotiator trying to talk to him.”

Supergirl turned and scanned the building. “How are your eyes? I count one person messing with the vault. I don’t see anyone else in the building.”

“We think everybody else got out, but we’re trying to be sure. Vasquez is a genius and got the security cameras back up, so we’re checking those, along with thermal imaging.”

Supergirl nodded, slowly scanning the rest of the building. “Um, does the bank have robots?”

Every agent in the vicinity spun towards Supergirl.

“What.” Alex said.

“Robots. There are robots at each of the entrances. They look a little like the Red Tornado, but better made? And each with their own slight variation?” Supergirl cocked her head, her eyes flitting across the building with that slightly unfocused look that came with her x-ray vision.

Agent Vasquez spoke up, tapping furiously on her computer. “Definitely not part of the bank. Security footage shows them coming in just after the alarm went off.”

“Do we know anything else about them?” Alex asked, waving one of the NCPD team over.

Vasquez shook her head. “We’re still digging into the perp’s background. I’ll tell them to hurry the hell up and to focus on where he could have gotten the robots.”

The NCPD officer walked up.

Alex quickly gave him the situation. “We have seven unfriendlies in there: the perp and six robots. We don’t know how the robots are controlled or even if they are. Or who’s doing it.”

“Uh, robots?” the officer asked.

Vasquez spun her tablet around so they all could see the security camera feeds. “Yes, one at each door. They flew in after the alarm went off and haven’t moved since.”

The man shook his head. “This is so above my pay grade.” He reached for his radio. “Hey, Cooper, send Sawyer over here.”

Alex stiffened, then forced herself to relax, remembering Leena’s advice. She didn’t need to be embarrassed about making a mistake or seeming weak in front of Maggie. Maggie was kind and good and a friend. She protected Kara and was understanding. She could be part of Alex’s support system.

Maggie sauntered up. “Did y’all request me or am I the only cop willing to talk to you guys?”

Alex did her best to give Maggie a pleasant smile. Joking at the scene was Maggie’s way of breaking tension and building camaraderie, even if Alex preferred to stay professional. “I think you’re the only cop willing to talk with us.”

Maggie nodded in agreement. “Probably. They already think I’m crazy, so dealing with the DEO won’t make it too much worse.”

Alex quirked the smallest smile. You did have to be a sort of insane to work at the DEO.

“So, I’m guessing you’re taking over the op,” Maggie continued. “What do you need the NCPD to do?”

Alex glanced over. “Keep up trying to contact the perp. We don’t know what he wants and we could use all the information we can get.”

“Sure. Do you want SWAT to go ahead with their sniper?”

“Yeah, a few of them. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they can take out the robots.”

Maggie tilted her head back. “Of course there are robots. It’s the perfect end to a shitty week.”

Alex snorted in commiseration, scanning the feeds on her tablets. “Our priority right now is the robots. We have to assume they’re hostile, based on their weaponry. The perp is still occupied with emptying the vault. If we can disable the robots we can go in and get him, or nab him when he tries to escape. Thoughts on taking down six killing machines?”

“Explosives?” Maggie suggested. “Lots of bullets? Get Supergirl to pick them up and throw them in the ocean?”

There was a pause while everybody considered the feasibility of those suggestions.

Alex shook her head. “They seem to have many of the same capabilities as Red Tornado. Which means bullets will have little effect and if we threw them in the ocean they’d fly right back. And with six of them, we need something that will prevent Supergirl from getting overwhelmed.”

“We could pulse the bank with an EMP.” Vasquez suggested. “He’s destroyed most of their systems anyway, so the company won’t be able to complain too much about destruction of property.”

Alex flipped through the security feeds again. “Would that stop the robots? If they’re as much like Red Tornado as they look, they’re shielded really well.”

Vasquez lifted a shoulder. “If we can get them all in the same area and hit them with our biggest pulse, probably. If that fails, then at least they’re all in one spot and we can blow them up or something.”

“What about whatever is controlling them?”

“Still searching. We’ve got teams heading to his house and work now, and running down any other places he could stash the computers necessary for this thing. But they could be autonomous.”

Alex nodded. “Okay, so we attack the front, using that to lure the robots into a single area, pulse them, hope that shuts them down, and send in a team to take care of the perp. Sawyer, I want the NCPD and SWAT to hold the perimeter and provide cover fire when they can. Vasquez, stick on his background and looking for how the robots are controlled. Johnson, prep a team to infiltrate. We’re going to need to hit them hard and hold them until they’re all in one spot. Place explosives as a contingency if the EMP doesn’t work, then head for Mr. Electro-Hands. Lee, prep the EMP and get it in position. We’re going to focus on the main lobby. Supergirl, call the Martian Manhunter. We’re going to need him.”

 

The group moved smoothly into motion. Supergirl zoomed off and quickly returned with the Martian Manhunter beside her. Alex suited up in her exo-suit, eager to try it out. Raven had finished the upgrades just a few days earlier. Maggie talked to the NCPD and SWAT, and they fanned out to provide more comprehensive cover of the perimeter. Lee and Vasquez retreated to the tech wagon and started their preparations, while Johnson collected the other infiltrators and joined Alex, Supergirl, and the Martian Manhunter in front of the bank.

 

Supergirl took point, with J’onn and Alex on her right and left and the other (heavily armed and armored) DEO agents behind.

She stormed through the door, punched the first robot in the face and yelled, “Come at me ro-bros!”

Alex chuckled and shot the robot (which was trying to get up) in the face.

“Remind me to teach you some better one-liners,” Alex called to Kara.

J’onn muttered (in Martian) <<You girls are going to give me gray hairs!>>

<<You’re bald, J’onn.>> Kara and Alex sing-songed.

Naturally, neither the punch nor the bullet kept the robot down for long and soon Supergirl and J’onn were tag-teaming it with ferocious punches, sending tables flying, and tearing up the floor and walls. Supergirl did try bear hugging it and hauling it out of the bank (trying to minimize damage) but it wriggled free and flew back inside. After that, she settled with keeping it busy.

Alex and the other agents fanned out, heading deeper into the building, attempting to get the attention of the other robots.

Just as Alex reached the door to the back offices, another two robots came thundering around the corner.

Alex grinned and backed away, luring them back towards their target area, urging the rest of the team forward. Supergirl split off to deal with one, while Alex holstered her weapon and cracked her knuckles. “Let’s see what this new suit can do!”

 

It became a madhouse after that. The other DEO agents lured the other three robots in (either the robots were more stupid than Red Tornado, or they had different objectives) and then went to take down the main perp. Alex ran the perimeter of the room, punching and shooting to keep the robots near the middle, where Kara and J’onn did their best to contain them.

“Isn’t the EMP ready yet?” Alex shouted into her mic.

Lee’s voice came back faintly. “One more minute, ma’am. It’s almost into position.”

Alex grunted as she took a hit to the ribs.

Suddenly J’onn shouted. <<Supergirl! Move back! There’s Kryptonite!>>

Kara either didn’t hear J’onn or ignored him.

<<Supergirl!!>> J’onn yelled again.

No response.

J’onn growled and turned to Alex. <<Will you tell your mate to get out?>> He bellowed.

<<What?>> Alex shook her head slightly. Maybe that last hit had damaged her eardrums too.

J’onn threw a massive punch at the robot in front of him. <<I don’t care if you have to threaten her with sleeping on the couch for a month, get her out of the bank!>>

Alex frowned in concentration. <<Yes, sir.>>

She whirled forward, ducking around flailing limbs and popping off a few shots towards the robot that had Supergirl in a fierce grip.

When she got close enough, she leaped onto the robot’s back and wrapped her arm around its neck. With a little judicious pressure and leverage and extra pull from her exoskeleton (thank you, Raven), she flipped it over her head and slammed it into the ground next to the other partially incapacitated robots, noting the green blades extending from its hands.

<<Get the hell out of here!>> Alex yelled at Kara.

Kara stepped forward, shooting some heat vision past Alex’s shoulder.

“EMP ready ma’am.” came Lee’s voice from Alex’s earpiece.

J’onn threw the last robot into the writhing mass behind Alex.

“Now!” yelled Alex.

The EMP buzzed as the Kryptonite robot swung its arm.

The blades raked across Alex, digging deep gashes through her thigh, flank, and shoulder blades and slicing her suit into pieces.

The robots lay still and officers flooded the bank.

Kara dove forward, wrapping Alex in her cape, and flew through the wall of the building, heading to the DEO medical bay.

Strike Team Gamma exited the building with the perp fully contained (and unconscious).

It was over.

 

\---

 

Kara paced forward and back in the waiting room. Five strides forward. A rotation counterclockwise. Five strides in the other direction. Another rotation, this one clockwise. Repeat.

One of the agents also waiting there eyed the ground carefully. He swore the cement where Supergirl had been stepping was a fraction lower than the rest of the room.

The door to the medical bay opened.

“Dr. Griffin!” Kara spun around, her cape fluttering behind her.

“She’s fine.” Dr. Griffin said, smiling wearily, leaning up against the doorjamb. “All stitched up. She’ll heal.”

Kara’s eyes were red and she stared at Dr. Griffin.

“I promise.” Dr. Griffin said. “She’ll be walking out of here this evening.”

“But there was so much blood . . .” Kara trailed off.

“She did lose a lot of blood, but we gave her a couple transfusions. Luckily, none of the cuts hit an artery.”

Kara twisted her cape in her hands. “Can I see her?”

“She’s being settled in a bed as we speak. They’re expecting you.”

Kara whooshed out of the room.

She whooshed back a second later to give Dr. Griffin a heartfelt hug. “Thank you.”

 

Dr. Griffin was right, and Alex was released that evening with stern orders to take her pills, eat and drink lots, and not to do anything more strenuous than walking from the bed to the bathroom and back.

Kara, of course, accompanied her. She drove Alex home in a DEO issued SUV, despite Alex’s protests she could do it herself. She didn’t carry Alex from the car to her apartment (she knew that would be pushing too far despite the doctor’s orders), but she did hover close by, just in case.

As they walked into the building, they were approached by a short, stout man with a mustache. He started speaking as soon as they were in hearing distance. “Um, Ms. Danvers, we have a problem.”

Kara sighed. “This really isn’t a good time.”

He looked at Kara funny and pointed to Alex. “I was talking to her.”

“Oh, I know, but she . . .”

“It’s fine.” Alex interrupted. She pulled herself up a little straighter and maneuvered away from Kara. “What’s the problem, Mr. Kowalski?”

“Do you remember the tenants in apartment 312?”

“Yeah.” Alex swayed a little as she thought back. “Tried to attach an indoor hot tub to the washing machine hookups. Didn’t work, broke lots of things, got evicted.”

“Right.” Mr. Kowalski glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Alex waved him away, trying to hide the wince that came from moving her arm.

“You sure?”

Alex nodded her head. “Absolutely.”

“Well, why don’t we go sit down in the office. Give us some privacy.”

“Sure, sure, good idea.” Alex turned to Kara. “You go ahead, I’ll be up in a minute.”

Kara lifted her eyebrow. “As if. You’re going to go straight upstairs so I can take care of you.”

Alex ignored Kara and began stumbling away.

Kara turned to Mr. Kowalski. “Where’s the office?”

“Ah, this way.” Mr. Kowalski hurried after Alex. Kara sighed and stepped up next to Alex, not quite touching her, but being there just in case. Mr. Kowalski opened the door that read ‘Property Manager’ and ushered them in.

“So, what’s the problem?” Alex asked as soon as Mr. Kowalski had settled behind his desk. “The contractors not fixing the apartment properly?”

“No, no, the contractors are great. The former tenants are planning to sue.”

“What?”

Mr. Kowalski sighed. “For wrongful eviction.”

Alex furrowed her brow. “They flooded two floors.”

He shrugged. “I think they’re trying to get out of paying damages.”

Alex snorted. “The hell they will. I’m going to go find them right now and teach them a lesson!” She wobbly got to her feet.

Kara hurried to stand up and gently push Alex back down. “Slow down there. Why don’t we let the nice lawyers deal with this, hmm?”

“Lawyers aren’t nice.” Alex pouted. “Like Lucy. She keeps making me leave the lab.”

“O-kay, I think the pain meds have kicked in.” Kara looked apologetically at Mr. Kowalski. “She’ll be out of it for a while. Why don’t you explain everything in an email and send it to the both of us.” She managed to dig a card out of her pocket while wrangling Alex’s ineffectual attempts to get up and fight something. “Do you have a typical legal team for this sort of thing?”

Mr. Kowalski slowly shook his head, staring at the two of them. “What happened?”

“Oh, um, just a minor incident. At the lab. Very aggressive . . . lab mice.” Kara stuttered. “Not to worry, she’ll be fine, and we’ll deal with those pesky tenants.”

“Okay.” Mr. Kowalski didn’t look particularly convinced, but he accepted Kara’s card and handed her one of his own.

Kara smiled, tucked it in her pocket and bodily picked up Alex, who was still mumbling about mean lawyers who smell good and tell her she can’t work. Kara paused as she reached the door. “Oh, just one more thing.”

“Sure.”

“Would you mind sending me a copy of your tenancy agreement? And all the legal stuff you have?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” Mr. Kowalski grinned. “You’re not trying to take over my job, are you?”

Kara let out a high pitched laugh. “No, of course not, I just want to familiarize myself with Alex’s responsibilities in all this. I’ll make sure she gets back to you. Okay, bye.”

Mr. Kowalski stared out the door after them and finally looked down at the card he’d been given. Kara Danvers. Reporter, CatCo.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself. “I didn’t know Alex was married. Or that she worked in a lab.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A plug here for comickergirl and her fabulous [comics](http://comickergirl.tumblr.com/post/147376036431/the-early-years-the-deo) about Supergirl, which is where I got the very aggressive lab mice idea.  
> Also, yes, it’s _that_ Jacob Kowalski. I couldn’t help myself. I love that character so much.


	18. A Day Together

Kara reached out to pull Alex closer but furrowed her brow in confusion when her hand met emptiness. She rolled over and blearily opened her eyes. Alex was sitting at her small desk (the one in the bedroom, not the massive thing in the office), flipping through papers.

“How long have you been up?” Kara mumbled.

Alex glanced over her shoulder briefly. “I dunno. A couple of hours? I couldn’t sleep. The regen pills make it hard.”

“It’s not the regen pills, it’s the pain.” Kara sighed. “If you’d take the recommended painkillers, it’d help.”

“Yeah, I’m not interested in being loopy and embarrassing myself more than I already have. Besides, it’ll leave me completely out of it. I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like what? You’re on mandatory leave the rest of the week. Longer if you piss J’onn off.”

Alex shrugged. “I have my next therapy session this evening. And some chores I want to do around the house.”

Kara sat up and stretched. “What are you working on?”

Alex shuffled some papers around. “Just some translation stuff.”

She’d spent the past three hours reviewing her notes on Martian. J’onn’s comment earlier had confused her. Did ‘mate’ mean what she thought it did? It did. And J’onn had been here for years, and was a mind reader, so she couldn’t blame it on a translation error, as much as she wished she could. She was kind of going around in circles with her work now. Maybe it was time for a break.

“Do you want some breakfast?” Alex asked.

“It’s four in the morning, Alex.”

Alex glanced at the clock. “Oh. You should get back to bed.”

Kara slid out from under the covers and walked over, resting her hands lightly on Alex’s shoulders. “Will you join me?”

Alex shrugged. “Not tired.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Huh. Yeah, actually.”

“Then I’ll go make us some breakfast while you check your bandages, okay?” Kara rubbed Alex’s shoulders gently.

“Okay.” Alex stood up and began carefully pulling off her sweats and t-shirt.

Kara paused in the doorway. “Call if you need a hand.”

Alex hummed noncommittally and twisted so she could see her back in the mirror. The claws had caught her right thigh, then swiped up her right flank and across her back. The ones in her thigh were the deepest and those bandages definitely needed changing. The ones on her back looked fine for now.

From what Alex could see of her injuries, the regen drugs were doing their work. One would definitely scar, another two would probably scar, though at the rate Alex used regen drugs, they would fade quickly. The smaller cuts would heal and leave no more than a slight change in color across her skin, soon to be eaten up by more injuries and scars and faded lines.

Alex changed the ones that needed changing and stared at her body in the mirror, her face neutral. She was so close to finishing. Just a few more tests, maybe a tweak or two, and then, and then . . . Alex cut herself off. No need to daydream about what-ifs. Just get it done.

Alex slowly pulled her shirt and pants back on, covering most of the bandages, and walked down the hall sliding her hand against the wall to support herself.

Kara was scooping batter into a muffin tin when Alex finally made it into the kitchen. “I thought blueberry muffins for breakfast.”

Alex wrinkled her forehead as she collapsed onto a stool. “I had blueberries?”

“No, I flew home and got some. We can go grocery shopping later, you’re out of basically everything.”

“I’m not out of coffee, am I?” Alex asked, horrified.

“Doesn’t matter if you are or not, you’re not supposed to have the caffeine with the regen drugs.” Kara gave Alex a stern look.

Alex shrugged, not at all repentant. She lived on coffee and she wasn’t planning on giving it up anytime soon.

 

After breakfast, Alex eyed her living room. If she had to stay home, she could at least get to that to-do list. She shuffled towards the boxes in the corner, heaving the top one off the stack. She had barely touched it before it was whisked from her arms and she was faced with a disapproving Kara.

“No lifting heavy things! You’re supposed to stay home and heal!”

“I’m unpacking a few books and placing them on shelves. That’s hardly strenuous.”

Kara sighed. “At least let me help you?”

“Don’t you have to go get ready for work? It’s nearly six.”

“I took a vacation day. If I don’t use them, they’ll start disappearing and Cat will yell at me again about balance and taking care of myself.”

Alex nodded in approval. She agreed with Cat Grant on that, at least.

“You can do the heavy lifting, I suppose, if you promise to take some time for yourself this afternoon,” Alex conceded.

Kara chewed on her lip. Was enabling Alex in her bad habits worth keeping her from popping her stitches?

“Only if you go grocery shopping with me and spend the afternoon resting.”

“Resting means I can write or use a computer, correct?”

“Fine. But no logging into work through a VPN!”

Alex considered and stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

Kara shook Alex’s hand firmly and lifted the box with her other. “Where do you want this?”

 

\---

 

It was about 10 o’clock when Kara announced that they were going to the grocery store.

“What?” Alex asked. “But we still have the media center to assemble.”

Kara lifted an eyebrow. “We’ve unpacked all of your boxes, organized your books by genre and then usefulness, added locks to all of the entrances in the house, including the air vents, and cleaned the bathroom. You promised to go to the grocery and we need to go now or we won’t have food for lunch.”

Alex looked at the clock. “It’s ten already?”

“No wonder you get lost at work. Remind me to thank Lucy for kicking you out of the lab regularly.”

Alex glared.

Kara ignored what Alex thought was a very effective glare and wrapped her arm around Alex’s shoulder, leading her into the bedroom. “I’ll take a quick shower while you put waterproof bandages on your cuts and then you can shower. We’ll go to the grocery, come home and have lunch, and then you are resting this afternoon. You promised!”

“Okay, okay,” Alex grumbled. “But you’d better do something for yourself this afternoon.”

“I will.”

 

Kara picked a larger grocery some distance away, instead of the corner store where Alex usually got her coffee, alcohol, and microwave burritos. Something about wanting Alex to add variety to her diet. The store was quiet, only a few elderly customers wandering the aisles and a couple stockers working busily at replacing cans on shelves.

Kara grabbed a cart and hopped on, sailing down the main aisle, pushing herself just a little faster than she should have been able to go. Alex rolled her eyes, but smiled, grabbed her own cart (because they were buying lots of food, not because she needed the support), and headed to the back of the store where they kept the wine and liquor.

Kara neatly cut her off and steered her into the frozen foods section. “I know you don’t have much time to cook, so we’re going to start with some healthy microwave meals. Then cooking supplies.”

“And coffee,” Alex added.

“And coffee.” Kara agreed, smiling politely at the little old lady they passed in the aisle.

“And some meat and protein shakes.”

Kara nodded, passing Alex a piece of notepaper that had a very extensive grocery list. “Already on there. Anything else you want to add?”

 

An hour later, the two Danvers sisters were astounding the checkout clerk with the amount of food piled into their two carts. Kara attempted to pay, but Alex neatly slid in front of her.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Alex scolded. “I get hazard pay, field pay, and lab pay, not to mention my income from the apartment building and my patents. Cat Grant barely pays you enough to keep you clothed.”

“I’m actually the best paid personal assistant in the state,” Kara grumbled, swiftly bagging their items (much to the relief of the clerk). “She gave me a raise after that incident of mistaken identity and another not too long ago. Both cost-of-living increases, or so she claimed. And there was a merit raise between those.”

“Huh.” Alex’s respect for Cat Grant increased. Even if she said that Kara Danvers and Supergirl were two separate people, Cat Grant was no fool and was acting accordingly, clearly trying to help Kara how she could.

 

-

 

After lunch, Alex set up her laptop in the living room. She could have worked on the computer in the office, but Kara was painting next to the living room windows, taking advantage of the afternoon light.

She skimmed through her (not-work) emails, focusing on the one from Mr. Kowalski. The former tenants were indeed suing for wrongful eviction. Things like this had happened before, and Alex had used a couple of different law firms to deal with it, but she hadn’t found one she liked very much.

Alex shot a quick email to Lucy, asking for recommendations of a good law firm, then switched over to her security system program. She’d done most of it on her own, asking Winn for advice now and then, but she enjoyed doing the coding herself. It was oddly soothing, having something that would do exactly what it was told and only that.

 

The two worked in companionable silence for a while. Eventually, Alex got up and stretched and went to the kitchen to open a pack of jerky. She pulled out a piece and gnawed on it (regen pills always had her starving) while wandering back into the living room to stand next to Kara.

“What are you working on?” Alex asked.

Kara sighed. “Trying to paint a Kryptonian sunset. I can’t quite get the color right though.”

Alex eyed the painting critically. “Try a little more yellow. I know Rao was a red sun, but the reflections from the buildings refracted the light and changed the color a bit.”

Kara nodded. “Okay,” and began mixing up a little more yellow. She stopped half way through a brushstroke when she finally processed what Alex had said. She turned slowly in her chair to stare at Alex, who was digging more jerky out of the cupboards.

“Did I tell you that?” Kara asked.

“What?” Alex glanced up, then back down, to consider a pack of crackers.

“Did I tell you the buildings changed the light? On Krypton?”

“No, but your buildings are basically big prisms. I’m pretty sure that’s why the sunsets were so beautiful. The sun would angle just past the mountain and hit that tall building, the government one, I think, and shatter, spreading and lighting up all the other buildings where it would happen again, the light bouncing and refracting over and over until the whole city was lit up in shades of red and orange and yellow and just glowed. No shadows anywhere, everything luminescent, the faintest hint of purple in the corners.”

“You’re talking like you’ve seen this. Did the AI show you pictures?”

Alex shook her head. “No. Well, I mean, yeah, I’ve seen all sorts of pictures from your crystals, but no, that’s not where I saw the sunset.”

“How?” Kara’s voice broke. “You described it exactly! It’s like you were there with me!”

Alex settled her hands on her hips and looked over past Kara. “I was. During the Black Mercy. I, I remember it.”

Kara dropped the paintbrush in her hand. “You remember it?”

Alex lifted one shoulder. “Yeah. What I saw. I didn’t have full run of the city or anything. And I think it really helped with my Kryptonese.”

Kara opened and closed her mouth several times.

Alex furrowed her brow and stepped forward, running her hands up and down Kara’s arms. “You okay?”

Kara was staring blankly.

“Talk to me.” Alex urged.

“You remember Krypton.”

Alex gave a half smile. “Yeah. I remember Krypton.”

Kara focused on Alex’s face. “You remember Krypton.”

Alex nodded. “I remember Krypton. The spires of the buildings reaching towards Rao. The robes that literally everybody wore. The smell. So close to earth, but not quite. The food. I can see why you love potstickers.”

Kara lunged half a step forward and wrapped her arms around Alex, completely ignoring the paint she was getting all over. Alex hugged back, as tightly as she could.

“You understand.” Kara murmured. “You understand.”

Alex rubbed Kara’s back, firm strokes up and down. “I read everything you wrote, but actually seeing it. It’s indescribable.”

“I know. I wrote as much as I could, trying to describe it. I wrote when I woke in the pod and when I got here, saying what was different. I remember it all so clearly because your sun helps with that, but I can’t describe it in a way that people understand. I can’t believe I have someone that knows what I mean when I talk about it.”

“You do,” Alex promised. “You’ll always have me.”


	19. Laying Foundations

“Who here makes Agent Danvers’ exo-suit?!” Kara demanded.

The mechanics shifted uncomfortably. One of them ventured, “Uh, she does most of the work herself . . .”

“But you guys work on it, right? Build it?”

“Well, sometimes, sure . . .”

Kara stepped forward and loomed. “Great! Then you can help me fix it! Her suit is her armor. And what kind of armor doesn’t protect the wearer? She was hurt! Badly! Dull blades cut through that suit!”

The mechanics cowered together as Kara listed every last problem with the (admittedly very experimental) exo-suit and precisely how they should have prevented that.

Raven rounded the corner and took in the situation. “Hey! Supergirl!”

Kara glared at Raven. “And you! Encouraging her! Helping her with the suit. Not putting any sort of defensive material in it at all!”

Raven gestured at the other mechanics and they gratefully darted away. “We were aiming for agility and offense. The agility so she could be fast enough to avoid attacks, in which case she doesn’t need armor. Especially if she can take the guy down quickly, which the offensive stuff I put on there helps with.”

“I’m the one with superspeed. She will run into things and people that are faster than her and then she’ll get hurt!”

“Why aren’t you talking to her about this?”

Kara ducked her head. “Because she gets mad when she thinks I think she can’t do her job.”

Raven took a moment to run through the sentence in her head. “Right. But intimidating the mechanics isn’t going to get you anywhere. They’re more scared of her than they are of you.”

Kara pouted, which basically just proved Raven’s point that Supergirl was just a big teddy bear. “I know, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Raven sighed. She felt more like a mom every day. Not that she was going to tell Abby or Clarke that. “Okay, why don’t you help me fix up her suit. If you can figure out a way to add more armor without hampering the agility or offensive bits, we’ll do that.”

Kara beamed. “Yes! Thank you!” She paused shortly. “After I apologize to the mechanics. I think I was a bit too enthusiastic.”

 

-

 

Vasquez dumped a massive stack of files in front of Alex. “This is everything on Palpatine the Second.”

“Palpatine the Second? Really? What, do you and Winn have a bad nickname contest?”

Vasquez waved her hand flippantly. “Not the point. The point is, someone has been feeding him information and supplies ever since he became a metahuman.”

“Including the plans for Red Tornado.”

Vasquez nodded. “There’s no way their design is a coincidence. They are way too similar. He’s hampered the AI and added things like those Kryptonite swords, but the base is the same.”

Alex groaned and slumped back into her chair. “Do we know who gave him the plans yet?”

“Not yet. We’re working it from both sides, trying to track down what happened to the research after Kara destroyed the first Red Tornado and trying to backtrack how he got his information.”

“Okay.” Alex sat up and reached for the files, wincing as it stretched the healing cuts on her back. “I’ll just go through this then.”

Vasquez snatched up the files. “No, you won’t. We have a dozen agents going through this information and you’re not supposed to be here. Go home and finish healing before SpaceDad or Supergirl haul you out of here and chew me out for enabling you.”

Alex glared at Vasquez.

Vasquez relaxed. “Look, speaking as a friend and not as an agent, I think you should go home and rest. We’ve got competent people here and you’re still injured. I know you’re still capable, but that doesn’t mean you have to push yourself. I’m not going to think less of you for it, and neither is anyone else.”

Alex pursed her lips thoughtfully.

Vasquez perched on the edge of the desk. “I think Raven finished your bike yesterday, so take it for a spin on your way home.”

“Fine.” Alex relented. She collected her coat and strode to the door. She paused in the doorway, turned her head, and addressed the wall next to Vasquez. “You’re a good friend, Vas.”

 

Alex strolled into the mechanics’ work area and paused. There had been a sudden gust of wind as she entered (much like when Kara was trying to hide something) and none of the mechanics would look her in the face. Deciding that it was not worth the effort of intimidating them (they looked scared enough for one day; never let anyone say she wasn’t merciful), she found her bike parked in its usual spot and ran her fingers over it happily. There was a rather lengthy note from Raven, detailing all the upgrades that had been done to it, including the Stark rockets, an alien-tech-enhanced engine, and a data feed directly into the helmet.

Alex flung her leg over the seat, eased the helmet over her head (one detriment to wearing her hair short and down -- it always got horribly mussed under the helmet and tended to drift in front of her face if she wasn’t careful), and started the bike. The pleasing roar of the engine had her relaxing and the HUD that flickered into view in her helmet had her grinning.

 

The ride home was uneventful but very enjoyable. Alex took the long way around and parked in her reserved spot next to the elevators. There were perks to being the owner of the apartment building.

She stopped by Jacob’s office on her way in and he reassured her that he had been in contact with the law firm and they were being very helpful. He also asked about her “lab mice” incident. Alex blinked before recognizing that as one of Kara’s thoroughly unrealistic excuses.

“Oh, I’m nearly all healed up, thank you.”

“Good, good.” Jacob bent over and opened up the small fridge next to his desk. He pulled out a wrapped plate, passing it to Alex. “Queenie sent this along for you. I made the bread, but she did the rest.”

On the plate was a full meal: a few rolls, vegetables, meatloaf, and a delicate slice of cake. There was also a note on the top with strict reheating instructions.

Alex shook her head. “Tell her thank you for me.”

“Will do, Ms. Danvers.”

Alex smiled. “I’ve told you to call me Alex.”

Jacob leaned back in his chair. “You have a good day, Ms. Danvers.”

Alex left the office chuckling. “You too, Jacob, you too.”

 

After a truly scrumptious lunch, Alex opened up her safe and then the locked door inside the safe. She pulled out a fat notebook that was filled with meticulous sketches and extensive notes, all in Kryptonese, of course. Then she pulled out a second (smaller notebook) that had all of her research on the serum. The last notebook to be removed was an address book, filled with names and numbers and contact information for aliens, superheroes, CEOs, and other people that were unknown but equally powerful. She carefully relocked the safe and retreated to her office desk. Running her finger across the number of the first person on her contact list and picked up her phone. It was the work of a moment to make sure the call was as secure as alien and human tech could make it before she dialed.

. . .

“Pepper, hi! How are you?”

. . .

“I’m good, thank you. I actually called with a business question.”

. . .

“I need to buy a piece of land, but discretely. It needs to be isolated and in the desert and no one can know about it, and I need to be able to legally keep it without questions for a few hundred years.”

. . .

“Yes, I do have a particular plot in mind.”

. . .

“Uh huh.”

. . .

“Yeah, I’ll email you the rest of the information.”

. . .

“Oh, right, new security protocols. I’ll get those from Jarvis.”

. . .

“Thank you so much, Pepper.”

 

Alex dialed the next number.

. . .

“Clark. Remember how I covered for you all those times you didn’t come visit Kara? Yeah, I’m calling in a favor.”

. . .

“Yeah, well, you should have been there for Kara.”

. . .

“A crystal seed from Krypton.”

. . .

“That’s none of your business.”

. . .

“Personal use, not for the DEO and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

. . .

“Ha! No. You still owe me. Deal with it.”

. . .

“No, I won’t tell her you said hi! Call her yourself!”

. . .

Alex grumpily slammed her handset down on the desk. The benefits of a phone that could resist super strength meant that she could hang up with feeling. Still, he’d promised to get the crystal seed to her within the week, and that was worth it.

Marking a few notes down in her research notebook, Alex hummed cheerfully and spun to her computer. There was medical equipment to acquire, lab space to rent, and house plans to make. It was going to be a productive afternoon.

 

\---

 

It was indeed a productive afternoon. So productive that Alex decided to reward herself with a trip to that alien bar she hadn’t had a chance to check out the other week. She was riding high enough that she didn’t even hesitate to challenge Maggie (who came in not long after she did) to a game of pool.

 

Three successful wins later and Kara strolled into the bar, greeting a few of the regulars and collecting a basket of mozzarella sticks at the bar. She greeted Alex with a kiss on the cheek and a quick squeeze of her shoulders, then settled onto a stool nearby to watch the game.

Maggie propped herself up next to Kara, eyeing the table venomously. “Your sister is destroying me at pool.”

Kara chuckled. “I can see that. You must be really bad; she’s way past drunk.”

“What?” Maggie looked over at Alex, who winked and sunk another ball.

“Yeah.” Kara nodded. “Totally drunk.”

“But she’s only had one beer!” Maggie protested.

Kara pushed up her glasses. “Plus six shots, am I right, Alex?”

Alex pointed at Kara. “As always, you know my drinking better than I do.”

“Unbelievable.” Maggie shook her head.

Alex set her cue down. “Your turn Sawyer, I’m going to grab us another round.”

“Your blood alcohol level is 0.15,” Kara interrupted, standing so she could murmur in Alex’s ear. “Maybe drink some water first?”

Alex looked at Kara. “How do you know my blood alcohol level?”

“Well, I don’t  _ know _ it. I mean, your smell changes, I know your weight and the alcohol content of the drinks . . . I can make a pretty good guess.”

Alex frowned. “My smell changes? What else can you smell about me?”

Kara fidgeted. “Most everything? Your blood sugar, so I can tell when you haven’t eaten. Your sweat, obviously. Um, when you’re aroused.” Kara was getting pinker by the second. “A few other pheromones and hormones. I can predict your period. That really only works on you though. I don’t know anyone else well enough to be that accurate. Uh, I can smell when you take drugs? You take the regen drugs a lot. And Aspirin. And those sleeping pills, but not as much as you used to.”

Alex stared at Kara. “You can smell when I’ve taken regen drugs.”

Kara adjusted her glasses. “Until they’re completely out of your system, which takes about 30 hours from when you take them.”

“So . . .” Alex’s mind raced, running through every implication of Kara’s statement.

“I can see the breaks and the tears and the bruises too,” Kara said, her voice turning kind. “I know every hurt you’ve sustained.”

“I was trying to hide it from you!” Alex said forcefully. “You weren’t supposed to know!”

Kara carefully worked her fingers into Alex’s clenched hands and kept her voice low. “Come on, let’s go somewhere else to talk about this, huh? You can forfeit this game; I think Maggie has lost enough money as it is.”

Alex glared at Kara. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you were pretty obviously trying to hide it from me.”

“Why didn’t I know you could smell that well?”

“Because we’ve never tested it? And I can’t do this sort of thing with other people. I just know you the best.”

“You’re not going to yell at me for ‘being reckless and getting hurt’?” Alex asked, snapping out the words she had heard far too often from J’onn.

Maggie decided this was a good time to interrupt, before Alex acting on the murderous thoughts flitting through her mind and across her face. “I dunno what y’all are talking about, but if you want it to be private, you should go somewhere else. Some of the people here have pretty good hearing. Like Supergirl good hearing.”

Both Kara and Alex chuckled, and Alex replied, with little rancor. “You just don’t want to lose again.”

Maggie shrugged. “It’s a nice perk, sure, but that looked like a kind of a serious conversation.”

Alex shook her head and pulled her hands out of Kara’s grip. “Nah, it’s nothing important. Let’s finish up this game.”

Kara opened her mouth to speak, because it was something important and she didn’t want Alex to think she didn’t trust her, but Alex shot her a quick glare. Kara subsided. She’d have to bring it up some other time.


	20. Progress and Plans

“We’ve got a name!” Agent Wells gleefully announced.

Alex grinned, her whole countenance lifting as she turned to head back out the door of the conference room they’d taken over. “Great! Let’s go get him!”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Agent Donovan said, halting both Alex and HG in their tracks.

“What’s the problem, Agent?” Alex asked, her eyebrows coming together.

Claudia waffled her hand. “We don’t have any proof. Like any at all. We won’t even get a warrant to look at him, much less arrest him.”

“How did we get the name if not with something provable?”

Claudia grinned. “I’m glad you asked! While you’ve been at home, lazing about because of some minor scratches . . .” Three different hands smacked Claudia simultaneously. “Okay, okay, while you were doing the responsible thing and healing after a major injury, we’ve been churning data. You guys have epic supercomputers, by the way.”

Alex waved her hand and fixed Claudia with a look that screamed: “get to the point”.

“Right. I cross referenced everything we know about this guy. From medical equipment to typewriter purchases and repair tickets to travel plans. I dug through layer after layer of shell companies. I traced information flows from here, SHIELD, and the army. The only person that meets all of the qualifications and has enough money to pull this off is one Kevin Lyon.”

“So why can’t we get a warrant?” Alex asked. “That’s pretty conclusive.”

“It’s all circumstantial. And the fact that I had to go through fifty -- I kid you not, fifty -- different companies to get to him means he could claim that he had nothing to do with it.”

“It might be enough to get us a warrant to watch him, at least?”

Claudia coughed delicately. “Also, officially, we only know about half of this information.”

Alex nodded. “Okay.”

“What now?” Agent Bering asked.

“We find proof,” Alex said. “Keep digging, get what you can officially. Talk to the guys he’s hired again, keep tracking medical equipment, you know the drill.”

“What are you going to do?”

Alex was already out the door. “Plausible deniability!” She shouted back.

 

Alex snuck into a part of the DEO she was sure had no cameras, no microphones, and no agents nearby to eavesdrop. Once there, she dialed a very confidential number.

_“Hello?”_

“Nat, I need your help. I need you to request me for an undercover mission in about a week. One that will last a couple of months at least.”

Nat didn’t seem at all phased. _“In order to do what?”_

“Finish my project and spy on a suspect without authorization.”

Alex could feel Nat’s grin through the phone. _“Excellent. Shall we say ten days? I can request you the beginning of next week. Or do you think your superiors need more time to adjust to your leaving?”_

Alex made a note in her calendar. “Ten days is perfect. That should be enough time to get things in order. And I think Hank will be glad to be rid of me, so don't worry about needing too much advance notice.”

_“Kara’s said you’ve been insufferable and I’m sure she’s toning down the stories.”_

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, and probably doesn’t hear about half of them.”

Nat paused. _“You’ve told her about this project, haven’t you?”_

“I’ll tell her afterwards.”

Nat sighed. _“Worried she’s going to try to stop you?”_

“I don’t think she’ll try to stop me,” Alex said slowly. “We’ve pretty much gotten past trying to control each other. But if I tell her goodbye, a proper "I might die" sort of goodbye, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave.”

 

\---

 

“Alex! Do you think you could make a few more of my special phones for the Avengers?”

“I guess? Don’t they have special Stark phones?”

Kara laughed and floated up to sit on the desk next to where Alex was working. “That’s the funny thing! They don’t! They have coms, but not phones. And Pepper was oohing and aahing over the security on mine at brunch yesterday . . .”

“You went to brunch with Pepper?”

“And Wanda and Nat and Jane and Darcy. It’s a weekly girl’s day out apparently. We have a standing invite and you should come next time. It's lots of fun. Anyway, after Pepper oohed over the security, Darcy asked if it came with a taser and Jane is forever losing hers and Nat’s breaks like a lot because she keeps it in her pocket and gets into really, more fights than she should.”

“I see.”

“Right! They need better phones. So I told them all about how you designed and built ours and how you could totally make some to their specifications.”

Alex tried to sound grumpy. “You just volunteered me to make five phones for free in my copious spare time?”

Kara, of course, was not fooled. “You know you like a good challenge. And it wouldn’t be for free. You’d get a favor from each of them in return. Or something else in change. Jane offered a second look at some of the alien tech and spaceships.”

Alex lifted her eyebrows. It would be a good trade . . .

“So, when do you think you’ll be done with them?”

Alex paused to pull out her calendar. “I’m not sure. I can get the techs to build up some off of your specs, but I won’t be able to do much with them while on assignment.”

“You’ve got a new assignment? What sort of thing? Where to?”

“An undercover surveillance thing. With Nat. It’s over in Massachusetts and no you can’t fly me.”

“But the plane could crash!”

“That was one time! I’ll be fine.”

Kara frowned prettily. “How long are you going to be gone?”

“A couple months, hopefully not longer.”

Kara’s pout got bigger. “Two months! That’s ages. We’ll still do sisters’ night, right? It’ll only take me a few minutes to get there.”

“No, Kara, you can’t just drop by. It’s undercover. I have to blend in, be discreet. And cut pretty much all contact with people.”

“Can I still call you at least?”

Alex tapped her pen on her notebook. “Maybe. Probably not. I’ll know more about it when I get there.”

“When did you find out about this?”

Alex bit her lip. Officially, she had only heard a couple days ago. Realistically, she had known since she asked Nat to arrange everything last week. She didn’t want to lie to Kara, but she didn’t want it getting around that she’d requested this either . . . unfortunately, Kara took her silence as the non-answer it was.

“I thought we were done lying to each other.” Kara huffed. “I get that some things are confidential and you can’t tell me all the details about your missions and everything, but a two-month assignment? Were you even going to tell me or were you going to just disappear, like you did in college?”

“Of course I was going to tell you, Kara,” Alex said, completely abandoning her work and reaching out to rub Kara’s arm. “I just didn’t know how.”

Kara scrunched her nose. “I get that, I guess.”

Alex squeezed Kara’s arm. “I'm doing my best to be open with you. I don’t want to keep things from you.”

“I know.” Kara swung her legs thoughtfully. “Whatcha working on?”

“Uh.” Alex glanced down at the paperwork in front of her. “The latest draft of my will.”

“Your will.” Kara stopped moving completely.

“Yeah, my will, advance directive for power of attorney and who can make medical decisions, life insurance, uh, estate planning, directions for burial and what to do with the apartment building and all my intellectual property.” Alex waved her hand at the masses of paperwork. “I just wanted to make sure everything was up to date.”

“Up to date.”

“Yeah, I mean I wrote the first draft when I joined the DEO, but things have changed since then. A few more patents, stuff with the apartment building that wasn’t in there, you know.”

Kara's voice was slow and flat. “And you just coincidentally decided to update all of this now? Right before you go on a two-month undercover assignment with the Black Widow.”

“Um. No?”

“Just how dangerous is this assignment going to be?”

Alex couldn’t answer that. The outcome could be anything from death to superhuman.

“And you won’t have any backup, because you’ll be undercover.”

“Nat will be there.” Alex offered.

Kara stood up abruptly. “I am very angry right now. Please don’t come after me,” she said, and walked out the door.

 

\---

 

Kara avoided Alex for two days and Alex let her. On day three, however, Alex had to do something. She would be leaving the next day and didn’t want to leave their relationship like this.

She dialed and prayed that Kara would pick up the phone.

 _“I’m still mad at you.”_ Not the best answer Alex could have gotten, but she’d take what she could get.

“Kara, will you come with me to my therapy session tonight?”

_“Why?”_

“I don’t want to leave on a bad note but I don’t know how to explain things to you and Leena will help, I think.”

_“You shouldn’t be leaving at all.”_

“Please, Kara.”

_“Fine. When is it?”_

“Seven tonight.”

_“I’ll meet you there.”_

 

The first five minutes of the session were easily more uncomfortable than Alex's first time. Alex was used to opening up to Leena now, and she had been working on opening up to Kara too, but both of them together was a different thing entirely.

When it became obvious that neither Kara nor Alex would be starting the conversation (they were even sitting at opposite ends of the couch) Leena spoke.

“Alex, you said you’re going undercover for a couple of months across the country. Is that what this session is about?”

Alex nodded. “I’m worried about going that long without my support group.”

“And why did you ask Kara to be here?”

“Because she’s the biggest part of my support group and I don’t want to leave her on a disagreement.”

Leen turned to Kara. “Kara, why did you agree to come this evening?”

“Because I’m trying to convince her not to go.”

“Is that what this disagreement was about? The assignment?”

“She wrote a will!” Kara exploded. “A will! She thinks she’s going to die!”

“I’ve had a will since I joined the DEO,” Alex snapped. “I was just updating it.”

“But you’re doing it because of this assignment!”

Alex sighed. “Yes, yes I am. This one will be a little more dangerous than some of my others, but I’ve got better chances than I had when I decided to fly an untested spaceship.”

Kara huffed.

Alex shifted to better face Kara, who had her arms folded and was staring straight ahead. “Yeah, it’s going to be dangerous, all assignments are. But we won’t be engaging. Just observing and collecting data. And Nat will be there, and other agents just a call away if anything goes wrong.”

“Why do you have to be the one going?”

“I have a good science background but I’m also trained in the field. And I have the security clearance. It’s a very classified op.”

“And the real answer?” Leena interrupted.

Alex grunted in annoyance, but wasn’t surprised that Leena could tell she was lying. “Nat requested me and I think the time away would be good. Useful.”

“How so?” Kara asked in a small voice. “How does leaving the people who care about you help?”

Oh. Alex thought. That’s why she’s so mad. She knew Kara had trouble with people leaving, had known it since high school. Some of the side effects of her entire planet blowing up were “Abandonment Issues” and a “Tendency to Imprint on Others” according to their high school counselor. The counselor had been a bit pompous, but not wrong. Even Alex could see how Kara tensed whenever Alex’s parents left for work, or the effort it took to get on the school bus and leave Eliza behind. That wasn’t even accounting for the PTSD, culture shock, or any of the other issues you would expect from someone going through what Kara had.

Alex slid across the couch and wrapped herself around Kara. “I’m not leaving you, I promise. I can’t call, but I’ll text you every day. And you can text me as much as you want.”

“You really have to go?”

Alex nodded into Kara’s hair. “I really have to go.”

 

-

 

Kara drove Alex to the airport the next morning. She didn’t say anything the whole ride there, but before Alex checked in, Kara reached out and pulled her into a tight hug.

<<Be safe.>>

<<I will. I love you. Don’t have too much fun without me.>>

Kara gripped Alex tighter. <<Never. I love you. Come back to me.>>

<<I’ll do my best, I promise.>>

<<You’d better. And if I don’t hear from you at least once every 24 hours I’ll come looking for you.>>

<<Okay.>> Alex squeezed as tightly as she could. <<I love you. I’ll text you when I get there.>>

Kara held on for just a moment longer, then released Alex and shoved her gently towards security. <<See you in two months.>>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [silverwriter01](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silverwriter01/pseuds/silverwriter01) for suggesting the special Supergirl phones. :D


	21. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it’s been forever since I’ve updated. I’m really sorry. Life is kind of kicking my butt right now. New job, went back to therapy, just stuff has been cutting into both my time and motivation to write. But! This will be finished, and I’ve actually been writing more lately, so hopefully the next update won’t take as long.

Alex picked up her phone the minute she stepped off the plane. It rang half a ring before Kara picked up and greeted her. “Alex! I missed you so much!”

Alex gave a tired smile. It was so good to hear Kara’s voice again. “I missed you too, but it’s all done now. I just got off the plane.”

“Oh, you’re back! Does that mean you can talk about the op now? Did it go well? Want to come over and regale me with stories of your awesomeness?”

Alex sighed. She really, really, wanted to see Kara again, but that would probably bring up a bunch of questions she was too tired to deal with. “I’d love to, but I’m falling asleep on my feet here and I still have some reports to finish up. Tomorrow? Breakfast?”

Alex could hear the pout in Kara’s voice. “I suppose I can wait that long. I’ll make your favorite.”

Alex smiled. “I can’t wait.” She really couldn’t wait. Even with the extreme likelihood of Kara interrogating her and probably being very upset about the whole serum thing, Alex would be willing to do anything to see and hug Kara again.

Unfortunately, Alex got a call from Detective Sawyer at three the next morning. There was a murdered alien found in an alley, was it one of theirs? Alex groaned, rolled out of bed, and said she’d come by to take a look. She texted Kara with the change in plans (she had no idea how long this would take) and swung by the DEO to tell J’onn she was back and leaving again. J’onn glanced up and nodded. “Take some backup.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and Agent Danvers?”

“Yes?”

“You look good. Refreshed. I’ll have to tell SHIELD they’re slacking if the ops they need help on are basically vacations.”

Alex gave a short laugh. “Yes, sir.” She did feel good, actually, really good. Maybe vacations were a good idea. Real ones, not fake ones where she pretended to be doing surveillance but was really experimenting on herself. Well, they had done surveillance but hadn’t got much from it.

Alex walked by the main room and paused in surprise. Vasquez was working the night shift! She leaned up against the doorjamb. It was good to see everybody, and it would be great to work with the DEO again. Nothing against the Avengers, of course.

“Hey, Vas, want to bust out of this joint?”

Vasquez grinned. “Danvers! Good to see you back. I’d love to come along; what’s the op?”

“Checking something out for the cops. Bring your portable scanner/database, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They caught up on the past few months while on the way to the crime scene. If Alex took the drive just a little faster than usual, Vasquez didn’t mention it and Alex didn’t notice.

When they pulled up next to the NCPD cars, there was a very familiar red and blue and caped person hovering next to Detective Sawyer. Supergirl wheeled around and beamed when she saw Alex. Alex braced herself, and sure enough, Supergirl flew into her, wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck and her legs around Alex’s waist and hanging on tightly. Alex squeezed back, as hard as she could. Kara barely noticed she could actually feel the hug properly, she was so happy to see Alex again.

They stayed wrapped up in each other until Detective Sawyer walked over from the crime scene, watched them for a couple of minutes, then cleared her throat pointedly.

“Long time no see?” she asked when they reluctantly broke apart.

“I’ve been away for a couple months,” Alex replied. “Just got back last night.”

She and Supergirl were no longer hugging but they were still standing practically on top of each other.

“You know, I hug my friends when I haven’t seen them in a while,” Maggie said, casually. “But that wasn't a hug. That was a straight up full body vertical cuddle.”

Alex and Supergirl just gave Maggie blank stares.

“Okay, you know what, never mind. Can you come look at what we’ve got?”

“Sure.” Alex strode after Maggie, Supergirl close behind.

Vasquez was already there, running the alien through their Fort Rozz database, and Alex began answering questions about what they knew about the species in general and who else would know that this alien's heart was located in the lower torso and could, therefore, stab it effectively.

Kara wasn’t more than a foot away from Alex the entire time. She was worried. Alex was the same, just different. The agent stood taller, walked more firmly, spoke steadier, and even exuded a sort of secretive confidence. All good things of course, but Kara couldn’t think what could have brought about this change. She was acting more like the Alex she remembered from before the world decided to make Alex its punching bag.

Several times the cops tried to ask Supergirl a question, but she didn’t even hear them, she was too focused on analyzing what was different about Alex. Alex still smelled mostly like she had before, just more Alex-y? And looked a little more muscled (not that Kara actively watched Alex's muscles, of course not). And was definitely taller. And stronger.

In turn, Alex was focused on the case, but always stood slightly angled towards Supergirl, occasionally giving her a small smile, or brushing a hand along her shoulder. Eventually, the cops finished their questions and handed Alex a clipboard of paperwork to fill out. Interagency cooperation came with a lot of red tape. Alex stepped to the side, tucked herself in a corner near the cars and began filling out the forms.

Kara reached out and poked Alex experimentally. Alex slapped her hand away and gave her a half-quirked smile. “What?”

“You’re more musclely.”

"I worked out a lot, these past couple months, Kara. There wasn’t much else to do."

“And you smell different.”

"Well, I’ve stopped drinking so much, that's probably why I smell different."

"And the extra height?"

“What extra height?”

“You’re taller!”

"I dunno, a late growth spurt?"

“Nope. Human females stop growing as teenagers.”

"Okay, so I lost that beer belly and I can stand straighter."

“That’s not it either. You didn't have a beer belly.”

"Then it must be just my shoes, Kara."

“No, Alex, it isn’t.” Kara pouted. “You’re different! Even your bones! I can’t see the scar from when I broke your arm. Twice.”

“Really?” Alex stared down at her forearm. “Huh. It was still there three weeks ago. Remind me to do some more scans tomorrow.”

“Al-ex,” Kara whined. “Not the point. You’re different but the same and I don’t know why and I don’t like it.”

Alex sighed and glanced around, checking to see if anyone was watching. She set the clipboard down and reached out to cup Kara’s face, smoothing away the pout with her thumb. “Can the explanation wait until breakfast? I don’t want to talk about it here. We’ll go eat and talk and you can interrogate me about whatever you want and tell me everything I’ve missed.”

Kara frowned.

“I promise I’m still me. I’ve just grown a bit.”

Kara pursed her lips. Alex's words had only loosened a tiny piece of worry around her heart. “Are you sure? I just . . .” she shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “You’re different. You look different, you feel different, you smell different, you sound different, you act different; it’s like you’re a pod person or something and no one realizes but me.”

Alex moved closer and brought her free hand up to Kara’s shoulder to lightly squeeze it while still keeping up the gentle rub of her thumb on Kara’s face. The physical affection was soothing, though it didn't make Kara feel better to see that their eyes were now on the same level.

Alex looked at Kara earnestly. “I promise I’m okay and will explain everything. I’m the same Alex who loves you. Please trust me for just a little bit longer.”

The alien let out the softest sigh of surrender. "I do. Trust you.” She smiled hesitantly and shifted her head, gently kissing Alex’s palm. Clearing her throat and blushing faintly at the unusually brave show of affection, Kara took a step back. “Okay. Think you’ll be done here soon? I can go start cooking.”

Alex smiled again, the corners of her eyes wrinkling slightly, like they always did. “Yeah, I should be done soon.”

Kara nodded, turning to fly home. At the last moment, she turned back around and wrapped Alex in another hug. Alex squeezed back as hard as she could, as she had done since they were teenagers and Kara had confessed to wanting to be able to feel a real hug again. Kara buried her nose in Alex’s neck and nodded to herself. It really was her Alex.

She released the other woman to fly home but didn’t get more than a couple steps away before Alex called after her. “Supergirl?”

Kara looked back expectantly.

“I’m going to be eating at least three times as much as I usually do.”


	22. Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back! Sorry for the long wait. Things are looking up, though, so expect slightly faster updates!  
> Many thanks to [silverwriter01](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silverwriter01/pseuds/silverwriter01) and [GeneralSan_3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneralSan_3) for beta-ing this chapter. They really made it lots better.

Kara held back her questions until they each had demolished four heaping plates of food. She set aside her dishes, folded her hands on the table and fixed Alex with a glare. “Tell me what happened.”

Alex took her last bite of French Toast and chewed slowly, trying to find the best place to start.

“Nat and I were on an undercover surveillance mission with the goal of learning more about a possible metahuman.” Alex paused to down the last of her orange juice. “At least, that’s what we told SHIELD and the DEO. Nat provided the mission and requested my help because of my specific skill sets in the name of interagency cooperation. I made sure I was both free from projects in the lab and had pissed off enough people that it would be beneficial for me to disappear for a while. So J’onn and Lucy approved the request, gave me a stack of back burner projects to work on in my downtime, and sent me off.”

“So you weren’t actually doing surveillance?”

“No, no, we were. Just not on a metahuman. We were watching Kevin Lyon. You know, the guy who we think is behind all of those random thefts and attacks."

"So you didn't tell me because you didn't want me involved in something illegal?"

"Oh, no, the surveillance wasn’t why we were hiding it, though the information we got is a definite bonus. We needed an excuse to separate me from basically everybody for a couple months.”

“Why?” Kara asked. She couldn’t even begin to process how she felt about Alex lying to her for months. Again. “What were you doing that you couldn’t tell even me?”

Alex gulped. This was it. “Because I had a . . . personal experiment I was running that I didn’t want to tell anyone about until I finished. It got to the point where I couldn’t work on it at the lab anymore. Nat helped me with the final bits.”

Kara frowned. “When you say personal, do you mean that in its most literal definition?”

Alex nodded sheepishly.

Kara’s eyes widened, and she rushed around the table. She pulled Alex from her chair by her arms and scanned her with x-ray vision yet again. “Alex! You experimented on yourself?”

Alex hummed. “I wouldn’t say experimented; I knew what I was doing.”

Kara took a deep breath and bit out her next words. “What exactly, under Rao’s light and Cythonna’s gaze, did. you. do.”

“Um, so you know Captain America? How they injected him with this serum stuff, and now he’s like physically perfect?”

“Yes . . . ” Kara continued to frown, and her hands unconsciously ran up and down Alex’s arms.

“Well, I replicated it. And improved it. Probably. I mean, we don’t actually know what the original serum was, but mine has similar effects, so I think I’m pretty close.”

Kara closed her eyes. “You do realize that attempting to replicate the serum is what turned Bruce into the Hulk.”

Alex huffed. “Yes, and I looked at his research very thoroughly before I tried this, Kara. I may not be Kryptonian sun-enhanced smart, but I’m not stupid!”

“You injected yourself with an untried medicine! Do you have a better definition for stupid?”

“It wasn’t untried! I tested it on tissue samples and evaluated microcular levels before moving to animal trials,” Alex vented. She took a deep breath and exhaled. She decided to spill her other secret. “Speaking of, I’ll need to get home to feed them sooner rather than later.”

“Feed who?” Kara asked, moving away from Alex to rub her forehead. This was all becoming too much to take. 

“The animals. I may have accidentally created a superdog. And a supermouse.”

“A super-what?” Kara stared blankly before shaking her head. “Nevermind, you’re deflecting the point of this conversation.”

“Fine. Ask me anything. I meant what I said about trying to be open with you.”

“Anything?”

“Anything at all.”

“And you won’t lie, or deflect, or say it’s confidential or that it’s to protect me?”

Alex winced. “I will be completely honest.”

“How many questions do I get?”

Alex reached forward, firmly clasping Kara’s hands, and stared into her eyes. “Kara. You have the rest of my life.” She paused. “Which, with any luck, will be much longer than expected.”

Kara stood up and paced around the kitchen. “Okay. Okay. You replicated the Captain America serum, tested it, then recklessly injected it into yourself?”

“Yes.”

Kar threw up her hands, looking at Alex with an exasperated expression. “Why? Why on your blue Earth would you do such a thing?”

“Humans die,” Alex said. “And I don’t want you to ever be alone again.”

“You did all that . . . for me?”

“Yes.”

Kara paced furiously around the table, clenching her fists. She needed distance from Alex, emotionally and physically. “No! No, that’s not allowed! You’ve already sacrificed too much for me!”

Alex refused to provide that distance. She quickly moved around the table to grab Kara’s shoulders, stopping her in her tracks. “Kara, you need to get this straight in that beautiful blonde head of yours. I can and will do anything for you. Do you hear me? Anything. And I’m not going to stop doing everything I can for you so don’t bother complaining about it.”

Kara flung Alex’s arms away, moving away again. This was truly too much for her to handle. “No, Alex. That’s not okay. You’re supposed to be living your life, not sacrificing your time or your possessions or your body for me!”

“Right, because it’s such a sacrifice to have an extended life span and a perfected body,” Alex scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“You could have DIED!”

“But I didn’t. I’m fine. This is a good thing.”

“The possibility of losing you is in no way a ‘good thing,’ Alex! I can't see any positives to this at all.”

“There are loads of positives! I can protect you better now; I can do my job better, I’m better in basically every way!”

“I’m an indestructible alien; I don’t need protecting! This whole turning yourself into a metahuman was a really bad idea.” Kara crossed her arms, her mind settled on the matter.

“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Kara shook her head. Her mind was now spinning with unspoken nightmares of everything that could have gone wrong with the serum.

Alex shrugged. “Look, I don’t know what else to say. I did it, it worked, I can’t change it back, and I wouldn’t if I could. I don’t regret one second.”

Kara’s face twisted between anger, disappointment, and disbelief.

The agent sighed and went to grab her coat by the door. “I really do need to go feed the animals. Please come over later once you’ve had some time to think about it, okay? I love you.”

Alex waited, hoping Kara would say those three words back to her. She left a moment later when she realized Kara wasn’t going to say anything else until she had a chance to think. She didn’t doubt Kara loved her and she knew Kara would understand. She just needed to figure out how to explain it better.

“I love you too,” Kara whispered long after Alex had walked away. She was only now beginning to realize how much.

 

\---

 

It took three days before Kara showed up at Alex’s apartment. She arrived in the evening with pizza, potstickers, ice cream, and a selection of movies.

“Sisters night?” Kara offered up hesitantly.

“Sounds great,” Alex smiled. She sincerely hoped none of the enormous relief she felt showed on her face. The past three days without Kara had felt longer than the months she had spent away with Nat. She had once been solid in her thought that Kara would come to understand why she did what she did. However, by the third day, some worries had started to creep into her mind.

A few steps inside the door and suddenly there was a dog braced in front of Kara, blocking the hall. She tried to step around him, but he shifted and growled lowly.

“Uh, Alex? Fido here is a little protective.”

Alex darted back into the hallway. “Right, sorry. Down, Rex.”

“Rex?” Kara asked, still not moving. “You named your superdog Rex?”

Alex nodded. “Yes. It’s a good name. Short and strong and fierce.”

Kara agreed after a (very) short consideration. After all, Rex still had his teeth bared and was tracking Kara’s every movement, though he had sat down at Alex’s request.

Something scurried over Kara’s foot, and she squeaked, leaping up and hovering in the air. “What was that?!”

Alex bent down to accept a lean brown mouse into her hands, bringing it up to perch on her shoulder while giving Kara a reproachful look. “Careful!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kara said, making sure to stay floating. She didn’t want to step on anyone.

“This is Rex and Basil,” Alex said. “Guys, this is Kara. She is the most important person in my life, so I want you to look after her like you do me, okay?”

Kara held out her hand. “Hello, Rex. Basil.”

Rex leaned forward and sniffed at Kara, then looked at Alex, suspiciously.

Alex chuckled. “No, she’s not human.”

Rex nodded once, took another long sniff, and scooched forward, encouraging Kara to pet him. Basil remained perched on Alex’s shoulder, his whiskers twitching.

Kara shifted the contents of her hands so she could reach down and scratch behind Rex’s ears. Alex grabbed the food and walked into the living room, placing the boxes on the table in front of the couches. “Uh, I have something for you.”

“Yeah?” Kara floated after her, still scratching at Rex’s ears.

Alex nodded and darted into her office, coming back out with a largish box, which she shoved nervously at Kara. “Uh, they’re labeled. And they can ask for changes if they want.”

Kara cocked her head in confusion before looking into the box and brightening. “You made the phones! You should come to brunch Tuesday and give them to the girls yourself!”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You should! They’ve been asking about you.”

Alex made a noncommittal noise and flopped down on the couch. Rex immediately curled up at her feet. Kara settled down next to her and opened the first box of pizza, automatically sliding a couple pieces onto a plate and passing it to Alex, along with the remote.

“What do you want to watch?” Alex asked.

“You choose,” Kara said, focusing on her food.

Alex paused, examining Kara carefully before putting on some Gilmore Girls reruns. They laughed through a couple episodes (and ate most of the food) before they spoke again.

Alex nudged Kara gently with her shoulder. “Are we okay?”.

Kara nudged back. “We’re okay. I talked to Leena and thought a lot. I’m sorry I got mad at you. It was your choice.”

Alex nodded. She’d spoken to Leena too and they’d discussed how Alex could have better explained her reasoning behind the decision. “It was my choice, but I should have warned you. Told you about it earlier or broken it to you easier or something.”

Kara shrugged. “I don’t know if that would have helped. I just can’t bear the thought of losing you, especially when you risk your life for me. You don’t need to do that.”

Alex turned to face Kara more fully. “Kara, I did this for you, yes, but ultimately I did it for me. I think this is the most selfish thing I’ve done. Ever. I risked you losing me so I could have the chance of never losing you.”

Kara sniffled, setting down her ice cream so she could dive into Alex’s lap. Alex immediately held on, as tightly as she could. Kara could feel the pressure, which was as disconcerting as it was comforting.

After a good cuddle, Kara shifted around so she could see Alex’s face. “I have more questions. But only if you don’t mind answering them.”

“Of course not. Ask away.”

“First. Does Eliza know?”

Alex winced. “I really, really, really hope not.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve only told Nat and you and Leena. And I didn’t even tell Nat; she figured it out.”

“Okay. Next. Were you planning on telling me if I hadn’t noticed?”

“Of course! I know it makes you feel bad when I have secrets, and it hurts me when you hurt. I would never keep something this important from you. Not now that we’ve finally gotten over the DEO mess and everything with the Red K and all that. Your opinion is so important to me.”

Kara looked urgently at Alex. “So why do you hide so much? You hide your injuries, your drinking, your fights! Why do you do it if what I think matters?”

Alex ducked her head and avoided Kara's eyes. “I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“Oh, Alex.” Kara wrapped an arm around Alex and began tracing meaningless patterns on her back.

“I’m trying, Kara. I’m trying to make myself better. I want to be good enough.”

Kara gently took Alex’s chin in her spare hand so she could look straight into Alex’s eyes. “Alex. You are always enough.”


End file.
